dy, they proved to be such that he was derided and mocked at for
his follies by those who were expecting that he would do some
extraordinary work. Now, while he was engaged on that work, having
taken a Barbary horse with him to Florence, he set it to run in the
race of S. Barnaba; and, as fortune would have it, the horse ran so
much better than the others, that it won. Whereupon, the boys having,
as is the custom, to call out the name or by-name of the owner of the
horse that had won, after the running of the race and the fanfare of
trumpets, Giovanni Antonio was asked what name they were to call out;
and, after he had replied, "Sodoma, Sodoma," the boys called out that
name. But some honest old men, having heard that filthy name, began to
protest against it and to say, "What filthy thing is this, and what
ribaldry, that so vile a name should be cried through our city?"
Insomuch that, a clamour arising, poor Sodoma came within an ace of
being stoned by the boys and the populace, with his horse and the ape
that he had with him on the crupper. Having in the space of many years
got together many prizes, won in the same way by his horses, he took
the greatest pride in the world in them, and showed them to all who
came into his house; and very often he made a show of them at his
windows.

But to return to his works: he painted for the Company of S. Bastiano
in Camollia, beyond the Church of the Umiliati, on a banner of cloth
which is carried in processions, in oils, a nude S. Sebastian, bound
to a tree, who is standing on the right leg, with the left in
foreshortening, and raises the head towards an Angel who is placing a
crown upon it. This work is truly beautiful, and much to be praised.
On the reverse side is Our Lady with the Child in her arms, and below
her are S. Gismondo, S. Rocco, and some Flagellants kneeling on the
ground. It is said that some merchants of Lucca offered to give three
hundred crowns of gold to the men of that Company for that picture,
but did not obtain it, because the others did not wish to deprive
their Company and the city of so rare a painting. And, in truth, in
certain works--whether it was study, or good fortune, or
chance--Sodoma acquitted himself very well; but of such he did very
few. In the Sacristy of the Friars of the Carmine is a picture by the
hand of the same master, wherein is a very beautiful Nativity of Our
Lady, with some nurses; and on the corner near the Piazza de' Tolomei
he p