Snell, Willebrord (1581–1626) Netherlands physicist and
mathematician
The son of Rudolf Snell (1546–1613), a mathematician at
Leyden, Snell succeeded his father as professor of mathe-
matics at Leyden university in 1613. He published a num-
ber of mathematical books, notably Eratosthenes Batavus
(1617), a fundamental work in the science of geodesy that
dealt with the practical problem of measuring, by triangu-
lation, the length of a degree. He is best known, however,
for his discovery in 1621 of the law of refraction (for any
two media, the ratio of the sine of the angle of incidence
to the sine of the angle of refraction is constant), since
known as Snell’s law. The law itself, possibly derived from
Snell’s unpublished manuscripts, was first published in
Dioptrique (1637) by René Descartes.
Society of Jesus See JESUITS
Soderini, Piero (1452–1522) Italian nobleman
A member of a prominent Florentine family, Piero
Soderini came to power during the period of the Medici
exile from the city after the ejection of Piero de’ Medici in
- As the egalitarian system of government set up by
SAVONAROLA faltered, Soderini was proclaimed gon-
faloniere for life (1502). It was under his leadership that
Florence recaptured Pisa, but this success could not stem
the rising tide of opposition to Soderini’s increasingly oli-
garchic rule. In 1512 the opposition of Medici supporters
within the city, the withdrawal of his French allies from
Italy, and the threatened attack on Florence by the Span-
ish papal army forced Soderini to resign, and he went into
permanent exile in Ragusa (Dubrovnik).
Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi) (1477–1549) Italian
painter
According to VASARI, Sodoma earned his nickname for
his homosexuality and his outrageous behavior, which
made him notorious. He trained in his native Vercelli
under the Piedmontese artist Giovanni Martino Spanzotti
(c. 1456–c. 1526), although the influence of LEONARDO DA
VINCIis strong upon his early work. His earliest known
works are the frescoes in Sta. Anna in Camprena, Pienza
(1503–04), and the 31 frescoes of the life of St. Benedict
at Monte Oliveto Maggiore, near Siena (1505–08). In 1508
Sodoma visited Rome and came under the influence of
RAPHAELand Baldassare PERUZZI. His most notable works
are the frescoes painted at the Villa Farnesina, Rome, in-
cluding The Marriage of Alexander and Roxane (c. 1514);
his other major fresco cycle is The Life of St. Catherine
(1526; San Domenico, Siena). His reputation as Siena’s
greatest artist of the 16th century was later eclipsed by
BECCAFUMI.
Solis, Virgil (1514–1562) German engraver, designer, and
illustrator
Solis’s birthplace is not known, but his workshop in
Nuremberg was producing engravings and woodcuts from
around 1540. Among editions he illustrated were the Bible
and Walter Rivius’s famous Vitruvius Teutsch (1548). His
workshop also produced a large number of engraved de-
signs for the construction and decoration of gold- and sil-
verware and for jewelry and other items. These were
primarily fashionable rather than original, but were
widely popular until after the turn of the century, not only
among metalworkers but also among cabinet makers and
stuccoists. The styles used ranged from early Renaissance
(basically late Gothic with classical motifs) to the man-
nerist grotesque (for example, a ewer with lizards crawl-
ing over its surface and a snake as its handle), employing
motifs popularized by the JAMNITZER FAMILY.sonnet (from Italian sonetto, “little song”) A 14-line poem
in iambic pentameter (in France, typically iambic hexam-
eter), the main types of which are customarily distin-
guished by their different rhyme schemes. The earliest, the
Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, both in rhyme and logical
construction consists of an octave (abbaabba) and a sestet
(cdecde or cdcdcd). The English or Shakespearean sonnet,
more suited to the difficulty of rhyming in English, con-
sists of three quatrains and a couplet (abab cdcd efef gg).
Other types are the Spenserian (abab bcbc cdcd ee) and
the Miltonic, which is Petrarchan in rhyme but often with
an extended logical development which blurs the volta, or
turn in thought, between the octave and sestet.
The sonnet seems to have derived from the lengthen-
ing of a very early Italian single-stanza form, the Sicilian
strambotto, which rhymed variously; in Sicily it was usu-
ally eight hendecasyllabic lines, in Tuscany the preferred
length was six lines. The poems of Jacopo da Lentino (c.
1215–33) are considered the earliest forms of sonnet
(abababab cdecde), and the division into octave and sestet
was fixed by his contemporaries. Guittone d’Arezzo
(1230–94) introduced the octave rhyming abbaabba,
which was adopted by DANTEand PETRARCHand so firmly
established.
As the vogue for the sonnet spread throughout most
of Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries, the form
tended to become trivialized as the vehicle for standard
Petrarchan love sentiments. It was given new life, how-
ever, by TASSO, MICHELANGELO, BEMBO, and CASTIGLIONE.
The earliest theoretical comment on the form is found in
Antonio da Tempo’s Summa artis rithimici (1332). Besides
the famous Italian sonneteers, the form was practiced in
England by WYATT, SURREY, SIDNEY, SHAKESPEARE, and
SPENSER, among others; in France by members of the PLÉI-
ADE; in Spain by BOSCÁNand GARCILASO DE LA VEGA; and
in Portugal by CAMÕES.44446 6 SSnneellll,, WWiilllleebbrroorrdd