Il Sodoma

What was it like spending time with them?

It was really wonderful because I've, as you mentioned, I mean, my whole life, e- and when I was a child, we used to get taken there on gita, on school trips all the time, uh, because there are these beautiful frescoes by Signorelli and Sodoma depicting the life of St. Benedict in this really gorgeous cloister.

And it's in a really beautiful part of Tuscany, which is called the Crete Senesi, which was basically a, a sea bed many, many, many, uh, millennia ago.

[laughs]

However, sodomy was often referred to as the, quote, which includes the city of Siena, where the artist in question was trained and became a professional.

His real name, Il Sodoma, is Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, and he was born in 1477 in northern Italy in the region of Piemonte, Piedmont.

He was already integrated into the Sienese professional circle by 1503 and was working on the Vatican decoration of for Pope Julius II by 1508, which then led to his work for Agostino Chigi in the Farnesina.

Now, it's important to understand that Il Sodoma was his nickname, and it just means the Sodomite.

Sodoma lived well into the middle of the 16th century, and was a contemporary of the biographer Giorgio Vasari, who we talk about all the time, who gives us the story behind why Sodoma was given the This name is very important.

Pay attention.

Vasari writes, "...since he always had about him boys and beardless youths, who he loved more than was decent, he acquired the by-name of Sodoma." and in this name far from taking umbrage or offence he used to glory writing about it in songs and verses in terza rima and singing them to the lute with no little facility Sodoma embraced this nickname.

He had no problem being publicly associated with sodomy and his love of young men.