r buffoon.]

[Illustration: SCENE FROM THE LIFE OF S. BENEDICT

(_After the fresco by =Giovanni Antonio Bazzi [Il Sodoma]=. Monte
Oliveto Maggiore_)

_Alinari_]

But to return to the work. Having executed there certain scenes, which
he hurried over mechanically and without diligence, and the General
complaining of this, Mattaccio said that he worked as he felt
inclined, and that his brush danced to the tune of money, so that, if
the General consented to spend more, he was confident that he could do
much better. The General having therefore promised that he would pay
him better for the future, Giovanni Antonio painted three scenes,
which still remained to be executed in the corners, with so much more
study and diligence than he had shown in the others, that they proved
to be much finer. In one of these is S. Benedict departing from Norcia
and from his father and mother, in order to go to study in Rome; in
the second, S. Mauro and S. Placido as children, presented to him and
offered to God by their fathers; and in the third, the Goths burning
Monte Cassino. For the last, in order to do despite to the General and
the Monks, he painted the story of the priest Fiorenzo, the enemy of
S. Benedict, bringing many loose women to dance and sing around the
monastery of that holy man, in order to tempt the purity of those
fathers. In this scene Sodoma, who was as shameless in his painting as
in his other actions, painted a dance of nude women, altogether lewd
and shameful; and, since he would not have been allowed to do it, as
long as he was at work he would never let any of the monks see it.
Wherefore, when the scene was uncovered, the General wished by hook or
by crook to throw it to the ground and utterly destroy it; but
Mattaccio, after much foolish talk, seeing that father in anger,
clothed all the naked women in that work, which is one of the best
that are there. Under each of these scenes he painted two medallions,
and in each medallion a friar, to represent all the Generals who had
ruled that congregation. And, since he had not their portraits from
life, Mattaccio did most of the heads from fancy, and in some he
portrayed old friars who were in the monastery at that time, and in
the end he came to paint the head of the above-named Fra Domenico da
Lecco, who was their General in those days, as has been related, and
was causing him to execute that work. But, after some of those heads
had lost the eyes, and others had been