Sodom and the Battle of Isso, the fascination of Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari

Abstract

The text analyzes the stylistic influence of Leonardo da Vinci's Battle of Anghiari (1503-06) on the fresco with the Battle of Isso (1516-17) by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as Sodoma, in the Villa of Agostino Chigi in Rome. Leonardo's painting though never completed is known to us through the surviving original drawings and copies made as early as the 16th century. They all relate to a specific episode, The Conquest of the Banner, perhaps the first to be started. The Sodoma fresco presents iconographic echoes from Leonardo's painting that are punctual to stylistic analysis, especially in the central part. Sodoma is documented in Florence between 1514 and 1516 and had the opportunity to see, probably, what Leonardo had left unfinished on the wall of the Sala Grande that he would later use. The Battle of Isso should therefore be counted, together with Raphael's drawing (ca. 1505), among the earliest evidence of Leonardo's work. This conclusion not only reaffirms Sodom's fascination with Leonardo but also contributes to the broader ongoing debate about the actual making of Leonardo's Battle by reinforcing the point of view of those who are convinced of the existence on the wall, albeit fragmentary, of the Conquest of the Banner.