Francesco Guicciardini, a contemporary, speculated that Pope Leo X (r1513-21) had been “exceedingly devoted – and every day with less and less shame – to that kind of pleasure that for honour’s sake may not be named”. The former wrote love poems to Tommaso Cavalieri, a young nobleman, while the latter apparently had an ongoing arrangement with a rent-boy called Riccio. The list of Renaissance men who had sexual or romantic relationships with other men is a long one and also features Michelangelo and Machiavelli, to name two of the most famous. Yet alongside that hostility was a degree of acceptance.
There was certainly religious hostility to sodomy: it was a prominent theme in the preaching of Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola, who rose to power in Florence in the 1490s. Only about 20 per cent of those accused of sodomy were actually convicted, and fines were not always collected in full. This figure might seem astonishing today, but it reflects a very different set of sexual norms in the historical period. In his book Forbidden Friendships, historian Michael Rocke showed that in the later 15th century, an absolute majority of Florentine men appeared on magistrates’ lists of men suspected of the offence. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)Īlthough sodomy was illegal, it was very common for young men in Renaissance Florence to have sex with other men. A suspected self- portrait of Leonardo da Vinci.
