Title Forbidden friendships : homosexuality and male culture in Renaissance Florence / Michael Rocke

Published New York : Oxford University Press, 1996

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Description 1 online resource (x, 371 pages) : illustrations Series Studies in the history of sexuality Studies in the history of sexuality. Contents Cover Page; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Acknowledgments; Contents; Introduction: Florence and Sodomy; PART I; 1: Making Problems: Preoccupations and Controversy over Sodomy in the Early Fifteenth Century; Traditional Controls; Agitation for Reform, 1400-1432; The Attack from the Pulpit: Bernardino of Siena; 2: The Officers of the Night; The Institution; Politics and Sodomy in the 1430s; The Turning Point in the Late 1450s; The Magistrates at Work; Community Controls; PART II; 3: "He Keeps Him Like a Woman": Age and Gender in the Social Organization of Sodomy Sexual Roles and BehaviorBoys and Men; Becoming a Man; 4: Social Profiles; Young and Old; Bachelors and Husbands; Provenance and Residence; Social Composition; 5: "Great Love and Good Brotherhood": Sodomy and Male Sociability; Encounters; The Character of Sodomitical Relations; Family Complicity; Friends, Networks, Sodalities; PART III; 6: Politics and Sodomy in the Late Fifteenth Century: The Medici, Savonarola, and the Abolition of the Night Officers; The Lorenzan Age; The Coming Scourge; The Spirit and the Flesh: Sodomy in Savonarolan Florence; The Suppression of the Office of the Night Epilogue: Change and Continuity in the Policing of Sodomy in the Sixteenth CenturyAppendix A: Penalties Levied; Appendix B: Statistical Tables; Notes; Bibliography; Index Summary The men of Renaissance Florence were so renowned for sodomy that "Florenzer" in German meant "sodomite." Indeed, in the late fifteenth century, as many as one in two Florentine men had come to the attention of the authorities for sodomy by the time they were thirty. In the seventy years from 1432 to 1502, some 17,000 men - in a city of only 40,000 - were investigated for sodomy; 3,000 were convicted and thousands more confessed to gain amnesty. Michael Rocke vividly depicts this vibrant sexual culture in a world where these same-sex acts were not the deviant transgressions of a small minority, but an integral part of a normal masculine identity. Rocke uncovers a culture in which sexual roles were strictly defined by age, with boys under eighteen the "passive" participants in sodomy, youths in their twenties and older men the "active" participants, and most men at the age of thirty marrying women, their days of sexual frivolity with boys largely over. Such same sex activities were viewed as a normal phase in the transition to adulthood, and only a few pursued them much further. Rather than precluding heterosexual experiences, they were considered an extension of youthful and masculine lust and desire. As Niccolo Machiavelli quipped about a handsome man, "When young he lured husbands away from their wives, and now he lures wives away from their husbands." Florentines generally accepted sodomy as a common misdemeanor, to be punished with a fine, rather than as a deadly sin and a transgression against nature. There is no word, in the otherwise rich Florentine sexual lexicon, for "homosexual," nor is there a distinctive and well-developed homosexual "subculture." Rather, sexual acts between men and boys were an integral feature of the dominant culture. Rocke roots this sexual activity in the broader context of Renaissance Florence, with its social networks of families, juvenile gangs, neighbors, patronage, guilds, and confraternities, and its busy political life from the early years of the Republic through the period of Lorenzo de' Medici, Savonarola, and the beginning of Medici princely rule Notes Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.--State University of New York at Binghamton) Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 331-346) and index Notes English Print version record Subject Male homosexuality -- Italy -- Florence -- History Sodomy -- Italy -- Florence -- History Gay men -- Italy -- Florence -- History Renaissance -- Italy -- Florence Homophobia -- Italy -- Florence -- History Culture. Homosexuality, Male -- history Culture culture note. culture (concept) SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Gay Studies. Culture Gay men Homophobia Male homosexuality Renaissance Sodomy SUBJECT Italy Subject Italy -- Florence Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 0195122925 9780195122923 0195069757 9780195069754 1602563047 9781602563049 9780198023432 019802343X 9786610470884 661047088X 9781280470882 1280470887 0195352688 9780195352689 0190284129 9780190284121

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