Florence : A History of Florentine Homosexuality

By Michael Hone

This book traces the homosexual history of Florence from its founders, Etruscans, the first people to practice uncomplicated omnisexuality, the men proud to show themselves naked, as were later Florentines and Romans, especially those with visually advantageous virility, applauded as they strode through the baths, assured of an invitation to the dining tables of the wealthy. Lorenzo de' Medici imposed liberalism on Florence, where the Office of the Night fined men caught in flagrante delicto with boys, the money going into the officers' pockets, the men, among them Botticelli and da Vinci, given a slap on the wrist. Savonarola predicted Lorenzo's imminent death due to his pederastic practices, the very young Michelangelo among the artists at Lorenzo's service. Machiavelli, born in Florence, wrote to his childhood best friend, chiding him over his being disturbed by his son's love of a boy: ''Since we are verging on old age, we might be severe and overly scrupulous, and we do not remember what we did as adolescents. So Ludovico has a boy with him, with whom he amuses himself, jests, takes walks, growls in his ear, goes to bed together. So what '' It was the Florentine Cosimo I who commissioned Florence-born Cellini's god-inspired Perseus, constructed in Florence while Cellini lived in perfect harmony with a boy ''whose love for me and mine for him border on the unbearable, his splendor enough to drive the Greek gods themselves mad '', a quote from his autobiography. Michelangelo completed his David in Florence. His lover, Torrigiano, smashed his nose during a dispute, while Cosimo de' Medici was obliged to write to the Count of Ferrara, warning him that the sculptor Donatello was on his way to kill a runaway boy, the Count writing back to Cosimo that he soon had the boys laughing together, ''laughing'' a mot clef for the word the German's employed, florenzen, for which we have a four-letter word of our own that also begins with an f. And so on to this very day.Cicero stated that he could make no claim to originality, but that his life's purpose was to popularize the genius of others. This is exactly my aim in writing this fully-illustrated book, priced at the lowest cost permitted by the editors in order to make it available to students.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1729612237
• ISBN13: 9781729612231
• Release Date: October 2018
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 194 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"