1500 - 1599 (The 16th-Century)
Michelangelo’s David
1500The Council of Ten (Venice) reintroduced the death penalty for all active sodomites
and passive man aged 20+. Minors were to be banished.
In Venice in the previous century 264 sodomy cases were tried involving 498
individuals. The frequency of trials now began to rise to 5 per year.
In Zurich in the previous century there were only 5 executions for sodomy.
In Bruges after an anti-sodomy campaign in the previous century 73 men were
executed.
c1500Bartolomeo della Rocca writes a treatise with a whole chapter on the catamite. He has
noticed the propensity for passive sex in boys aged 40-70.
Deli Birader, poet, compiled a series of bawdy stories & poems for the entertainment of a
prince. A substantial chapter is about sex with youths.
1501 Machiavelli receives a letter which states if the author Pacifico Massimi wasn’t
protected by a cardinal he would have been burned at the stake for his sodomitical
poems.
1501-4 Michelangelo sculpts his monumental nude David.
1502 Sandro Botticelli is denounced in a purge to root out sodomy. He does not appear to
have been found guilty.
A tailor (17) said he had been sodomised by a priest countless times, for which he
was given a large bribe.
Death of the Japanese poet, Sōgi. He wrote of the wakashu, the young boy or youth
who was loved. He must have a pure and simple heart, be both tender and
noble, must never fail to respond to passion from an older man, even if he is not
pleasing.
1503 In Castile King Ferdinand permitted capital crimes other than sodomy to be commuted to
the galleys. Sodomites were burnt.
1503-4 Michelangelo works on the panel painting, The Holy Family, which has a group of
male nudes. Some have argued that 2 of them are same-sex lovers.
1505 King Ferdinand of Castile decreed that sodomy cases must be under royal control,
and not dealt with by the inquisition authorities.
1505-7 Michelangelo works on a fresco of the Battle of Cascina – a complex series of male
nudes. It does not survive.
1506 Despite Ferdinand’s order the Inquisition tried a group of sodomites.
A sonnet is written accusing Pope Julius II of being a passive sodomite.
c1506 Jakob Wimpfeling, humanist, was libelled that he was lusting after boys in his care.
1507 Georg Faustus had to leave his previous role as a schoolmaster, when he was
accused of sodomizing his boys.
1509 The Supreme Order of the Inquisition forbade all provincial authorities for dealing
with sodomites unless heresy was involved.
Leonard da Vinci (57) begins living with Francesco Melzi (18), who becomes his
heir.
1510 In Castile a man put his hand down the trousers of a youth and asked him to go to
bed, for which he was executed.
c.1510 The Repellers of Troubles & the Remover of Anxieties by Mehemmed Ghazali. A
pornographic allegorical work in which is included a battle between boy-
lovers and girl-lovers. The boy-lovers triumph. The anus as a source of
pleasure is also praised.
1511 Giovanni de’ Medici (12-13) is banished from Florence for inviting Giovanni
Neretti (16) for the night, but who was waylaid and raped by two men.
Venice’s patriarch announced that male sodomy was so prevalent that female
prostitutes were going out of business.
The artist Giovanni Bazzi began to acquire the nickname Il Sodoma. He even
signed a tax return with that appellation. According to Visari, he received his
nickname from being surrounded with “boys and beardless youths, whom he
loved more than was decent.”
1513 Death of Pope Julius II, who had commissioned his tomb and the Sistine Chapel
ceiling from Michelangelo.
The conquistador Vasco Núńez de Balboa found the king of Panama’s brother and
40 of his men dressed as women and engaging in “preposterous Venus”. He
fed these men to his dogs.
1514 A Swiss mercenary stated he would not serve the Lombards because they were
sodomites.
Servatius Rogerus suggests Erasmus (48) return to Stein to live out his retirement,
but Erasmus makes it clear he is in demand all over Europe.
Marc’Antonio Flaminio (16) is taken to Rome & receives an offer for a free
education from Pope Leo X, but the father refuses, possibly suspecting
the pope’s motives.
1516 Livio Guidolotti translates Lucian of Samosata’s Dialogues of the Gods into Latin.
This includes Dialogue IV: Ganymede & Zeus.
Il Sodoma’s [Giovanni Antonio Bazzi] fresco of The Wedding of Alexander and
Roxana has been said to depict Alexander’s same-sex inclinations, but this
is disputed.
Self-portrait of Il Sodoma
Ludovico Ariosto writes Orlando Furioso. In Canto 25 a young Amazon, Bradamante, is
shorn of her hair & mistaken for a youth by a princess. Although her real gender
is confessed, the princess is unabashed. They live together for several weeks as
2 loving women, until Bradamante’s twin brother switches places with his sister.
A new Venetian law referred to adult-men in a passive sexual role as “an absurd
and unheard-of thing”. This was to try and combat men in their 30s or
above even up to their 60s who were paying other men to sodomize them.
1519 An anonymous Valencian author publishes a fantastical tale in which a demon
impales himself on a cow-herd’s erection. The cow-herd gains the upper hand.
A Franciscan gave a sermon in Valencia cathedral declaiming that sodomitical
behaviour was responsible for pestilence & other social ills.
On arriving in Mexico, Cortés called for sodomy to be abandoned, and when he met
Moctezuma he exhorted him to halt the “abominable” sin of sodomy.
Marc’Antonio Flaminio (17) receives another offer from Pope Leo, but his father
declines.
1520 A Venetian citizen was exiled for having sexual relations with Ahmed, an Ottoman envoy.
Johannes Nusser was arraigned in Lucerne, admitted while a papal guard in Rome, to having
had sex with many boys & men, laymen & monks, Italians & Germans, and even to
having anally penetrated women.
c.1520 Gherardo Perini becomes the model of Michelangelo – they become lovers.
Benvenuto Cellini dresses a male neighbour in women’s clothes and presents him at dinner
as a beautiful prostitute. He later, rejected violently, any hint of homoeroticism.
homoeroticism.
1521 Prato was sacked. Spanish soldiers were reported to have raped local boys.
1523 14 January. Benvenuto Cellini is fined for having relations with a young man named
Domenico di Ser Giuliano da Ripa.
Francesco Berni wrote a passionate Latin poem about a boy lying sick with the plague. He is
He is confined in a monastery for several months well outside Rome.
Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s Strix, a treatise on witchcraft, claims that all Classical
pagan gods were demons, so sodomy, practised by Zeus & Ganymede was a demonic
invention.
1523-7 Giulio Romano’s Apollo & Cyprarissus is drawn – depicting an older man with his
arm around a youth with his hand resting on the youth’s groin.
1524 A papal breve gives Aragon jurisdiction over sodomy cases. The only location is Spain. The
The Zaragoza tribunal arrested a prominent citizen and critic of the Inquisition, Don
Sancho de la Caballería.
The engraver Marcantonio Raimondi reproduced Giulio Romano’s 16 explicit pictures
which had adorned the Vatican. They were banned, and Raimondi was imprisoned.
Pietro Aretino sees them, and writes scurrilous verses to accompany each one.
Pietro Aretino
First publication of some of Marbod of Rennes’ poems. (1123) Some are homoerotic.
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V declared same-sex acts were punishable by death.
c.1524 A line in an Ariosto poem claims that few humanists are without the sin of Sodom and
Gomorrah.
1525‘Il Sodoma’ paints what has been seen by some as a homoerotic portrait of St. Sebastian.
La cazzaria [The Book of the Prick] by Antonio Vignali.
Hans Pröpstli, arrested in Solothurn, claims he learned about sodomy while travelling in
Rome & Milan.
Antonio Vignali co-founded an Academy from a group of Sienese literati.
The historian Francesco Guicciardini alleges that Pope Leo X, who died 4 years
previously had been a sodomite.
c.1525 Benedetto Varchi (22), author, has his first documented love affair with a youth called
youth called Giovanni de’ Pazzi. Pazzi’s father has Varchi set upon & stabbed.
1526 An anonymous German pamphlet alleges that the vice of sodomy originated in Turkey.
Benedetto Varchi (23) falls in love with Giulainino Gondi, but the latter dies in a street fight.
1527 Benedetto Varchi (24) falls in unrequited love with Lorenzo Lenzi (10) and writes him many
love sonnets. They become lifelong friends & Varchi bequeaths his library to Lenzi.
c1527 Deli Birader’s hamam [public baths] in Istanbul was alleged to employ the prettiest boys to
attract more ‘lovers’ to visit the premises.
Pietro Aretino falls in love with a woman in Mantua, and temporarily discards his
sodomitical ways.
1528 January & February. Federico Gonzaga, Marchese of Mantua, writes a series of love letters
to the libertine, Pietro Aretino.
In Grenada a special investigation was held into a network of Morisco sodomites.
1529 A Leicestershire man (40) admitted to 2 counts of sodomy with a fellow-villager at the
Bishop of Lincoln’s court.
1530 Ivan the Terrible is born after his father, Vasili Ivanovich, is only able to consummate his
second marriage when a naked officer shares the wedding bed.
Pietro Arietino is known to have had a catamite in his house.
Death of the young poet Antonio Brocardo. Some of his poems touched on male-male
desire.
1530-1 Francesco Berni writes to Vincilao Boiano in code asking for “buttocks” and “catamites.”
1530-9 Parmigianino’s drawings often have a homoerotic feel. One depicts two male figures
with erections.
1530-1607 In Lucerne, Switzerland only 4 executions for sodomy were prosecuted.
1532 Michelangelo (57) meets Tommaso de Cavalieri (13-20), the greatest love of his life. The
relationship was not consummated, but was commemorated in some of the finest
Platonic friendship poetry ever written. Michelangelo dedicates his The Rape of
Ganymede to Tommaso.
Female sodomy was made a capital crime in some German states.
Andrea Quaratesi (18), wished to crawl on all fours to see Michelangelo one night.
c.1532 2 sailors involved in the conquest of the conquistadors were sent back to Cadiz & executed
for sodomy.
In Venezuela 5 Italian soldiers serving under Alonso de Herrera were found guilty of
sodomy. They were garroted & then burnt.
1533 Il maraescalo, [The Stablemaster] play by Pietro Aretino performed. A character reluctant with women is told he must marry.
1 Jan. Michelangelo begins a series of love letters to Tommasso de Cavalieri.
Yunus, an Ottoman envoy, was banned from taking a beautiful boy back with him to
Istanbul by the Venetian authorities.
In Blois, France, a rare sodomy case of an Italian was prosecuted.
In England Henry VIII’s so-called Buggery Act is instituted.
In Switzerland a weaver (26) was burnt at the stake for mutual masturbation.
c1533 In Augsberg a circle of at least 9 men were having sex with each other, a senior patrician
was implicated.
Francesco Berni writes a poem in the voice of a male who enjoys ‘passive’ sex – a fantasy
about being captured by Turkish pirates.
1533-4 Michelangelo had a passionate affair with his much younger model Febo di Poggio.
1534 4 January. Febo di Poggio writes a love-letter to Michelangelo.
After a plague the Republic of Ragusa [Dubrovnik] confirms its 1474 anti-sodomy law.
In Lyon, France a rare sodomy case of an Italian was prosecuted.
1535 Pope Paull III reproves Pier Luigi Farnese for taking his male lovers on a visit to the
emperor, who disliked this type of love.
1536 A Remedy for Sedition by Richard Morrison alleges that “young novices may stand
instead of young wives. I have said enough. It stinks too sour to be stirred so
much.”
In Münster Franz von Alsten, a doctor from Brabant had been sodomized often,
but not always for money. He admitted that 4 years earlier when he lived in
Rome, he had performed both the active & passive roles.
The Franciscan Friary latrine in Hamm was used for sex between 2 men.
c.1536 ‘In Praise of Buggery’ was supposed to have been written in Latin by Giovanni della
Casa. However, this was a lie spread by protestant propagandists. However, as a
youth he had written The Oven Chapter – a work in which only a couple of
stanzas deal with sodomy.
1536-41 Michelangelo works on the Last Judgement. Some of the male nudes proved
controversial.
1537 Sonetti lussuriosi by Pietro Aretino. They became known as Aretino’s Postures. They
were banned by the Pope, who ordered all copies to be destroyed.
Benedetto Varchi falls in love with Guilio Strozzi in Padua.
Pier Luigi Farnese (34) is alleged to have raped the young Bishop of Fano (24), who
died 40 days later.
In Zurich a man was accused of grabbing another man’s genitals, but he said he was
drunk.
1538 Pietro Aretino flees Rome because of accusations of sodomy. A scandalous biography of
him described his 3-way coupling with his catamite & the catamite’s wife.
Carlo Sigonio, a young scholar, exaggeratedly claimed that all schoolmasters practice the
the sins of sodomitical lust.
In Toulouse a man was convicted of sodomy after his master was tried for heresy. It is
believed the servant may have been executed on a trumped-up charge.
Cromwell’s inspectors of English monasteries are alleged to have discovered “gelded
youth, debaucheries, catamites, boy-things, pederasts, sodomites, [and]
Gannymedes.” 180 monks were found to be sodomites, but this was what
Cromwell wanted.
1539 In Lucca new complicated statutes were issued: Boys under 14 were punished at the
discretion of the judge. Boys (14-18) were beaten or whipped for a first offence,
with a prison sentence on a second conviction. Men (18-30) were imprisoned and
fined, which was doubled on a second occasion. Men (30-50) had a double
sentence & a fine. Men (50+) would be executed.
1539-51 In Florence 571 men & boys were tried for sodomy and 96 were convicted.
1540 Nicolas Gombert was convicted of sexual contact with a boy and his sentenced to hard
labour on the galleys.
Posthumous publication of Tomasso de Vio’s commentary on Thomas Aquinas. De Vio
believed that a sodomite is motivated by a person of improper sex, whilst a
masturbator is only motivated by sexual pleasure.
Benedetto Varchi loses the protection of the Strozzi family after a same-sex scandal &
moves to Bologna.
14 January. A Florentine embassy member describes Pier Luigi Farnese’s search in Rome
for a youth who had refused his advances.
28 July. Lord Hungerford was accused of buggery with his male servants and executed,
but the buggery claim may have been made for political reasons and been false.
1540-1640In Barcelona 124 trials for sodomy took place, involving 137 individuals.
1541 Nicholas Udall, headmaster of Eton, sent to the Marshalsea for admitting buggery with a
number of pupils, including Thomas Cheney/Cheyne on 6 March that year.
In Zurich Werner Steiner, protestant cleric, and former Catholic priest was tried for
mutual masturbation 23 years after the event. His partners included an itinerant
labourer & a bath attendant.
1542 Michelangelo (66) is thought to have been sleeping with Francesco de Zanobi Bracci
aka Cecchino (13).
Bartolome de las Casas wrote that Mayan parents supplied their adolescent sons with
boys to use for sexual pleasure before marriage, but that if someone else committed
sodomy on one of these boys it was tantamount to rape. Mayans are believed to
have sodomised their prisoners to indicate that the men were effeminate in defeat.
Death of Girolamo Benivieni, who was buried in the same tomb as his close friend
Giovanni Pico who died more than 50 years earlier.
1545 A diplomatic report from Venice refers to a ‘sect of sodomites’.
Michelangelo collected his love poems together for possible publication, changing the
gender in the poems from ‘he’ to ‘she’.
Bendetto Varchi, Florentine poet, was arrested and tried for pederasty. His many friends
interceded and he was released.
1545-50 Benvenuto Cellini returns to Florence, and begins creating sculptures, many with a same-
sex theme: Perseus, Ganymede and an Eagle, Apollo & Hyacinth & Narcissus.
1545-1553 Francesco Beccuti, Florentine poet, pleads with Francesco Colombo, a professor at
Perugia University in ‘Contro la pederastia’ to abandon his love for men.
1547 Nicolas Gombert was pardoned around this time after producing 8 Magnificat settings.
In Zurich a man was accused of grabbing another man’s genitals, but he said he was
testing how healthy they were.
1547-53 Francesco Beccuti, Florentine poet, was in love with Francesco Bigazzini (‘Alessi’).
1548 Benvenuto Cellini, Florentine goldsmith, is accused by a woman of sodomy with her son,
Vincenzo. He temporarily flees to Venice.
1549 Pietro Paolo Vergerio in hiding in Switzerland accuses a papal nuncio of composing
poems in praise of sodomy.
St Francis Xavier arrives in Japan. In a Zen monastery he discovered “abominable vice
against nature so popular that they practice it without any feeling of shame.
They have many young boys with whom they commit wicked deeds.”
1550 9 July. Jàcopo Bonfàdio, historian, beheaded and burnt for sodomy in Genoa.
Fra Francesco Calcagno, a former monk was tried in Venice. He said “that a beautiful
arse is his altar, his Mass, his host, his chalice…; and again, he would sooner
worship a beautiful boy, by having sex with him, than worship God”. He also
alleged that “Jesus often had sex with St. John, and that he kept him as his
catamite.”
In Barcelona, a Latin & Greek teacher was accused of making sodomitical advances to
his pupils.
Pope Julius III makes his lover, Innocenzo Del Monte (17), a cardinal, causing scandal.
c.1550 Adam Bell, a ballad of sworn brotherhood appears as a printed quarto volume.
1551 In Sante Fe a Dominican forced boys in his charge (aged 9-12) to commit sodomy, and threatened them with whipping & death if they informed anyone.
1551-99 In Florence 596 men & boys were tried for sodomy, with 368 found guilty.
1552 Ralph Roister Doister by Nicholas Udall is written. Matthew Merrygreek twice
bemoans the fact he was not born a woman, so he could marry Ralph himself.
1553 King John III of Portugal allowed the inquisition to judge sodomy cases.
Marc-Antoine Muret, humanist, is forced to flee Paris after being accused of sodomy &
heresy.
Benedetto Varchi falls in love with Giulio della Stufa (14) – they become a laughing stock.
c.1553 Francesco Beccuti wrote 3 sonnets in praise of the beauty and virtue of Barnardino Alfani.
1554 Matteo Bandello, Dominican Friar, publishes a comic novella in which a real-life
character, Giannantonio de’Pandoni denies sinning against nature because to enjoy
himself with boys is more natural to him than eating and drinking.
Marc-Antoine Muret and his lover Memmius Frémiot are forced to flee Toulouse because
of another accusation of sodomy & heresy.
1555 Agnolo Bronzino’s poems were published. One dealt with a variety of the sexual acts of the
paintbrush (penis); another praised the frying-pan (buttocks).
Jacopo Pontormo, artist - his diaries reveal he is in love with Battista Naldini, his assistant.
Benedetto Varchi has financial problems, so he’s invited to Bologna by old flame Lorenzo
Lenzi. In Bologna he falls in love with the nobleman Cesare Ercolani.
c1555 Michelangelo’s sketch of The Rape of Ganymede is produced. It has been described as an
example of anal penetration.
Joachim du Bellay wrote a sonnet about the recently-deceased Ascanio, who had been the
beloved of the poet Carlo Carafo.
1556 26 February. Benvenuto Cellini is sentenced to 4 years imprisonment for sodomising
Fernando di Giovannio di Montepulciano “many times” and was ordered to pay the
large fine of 50 gold scudi. He was also permanently banned from public office.
3 men and a boy met in a stable in order to sodomise another boy in a case brought before
before the Lisbon Inquisition.
1557 Tottle’s Miscellany is published, which lists several supposed same-sex lovers from Greek
mythology.
A young Moor was paid for sex in Setúbal, Portugal because Moors were said to sleep with
boys.
In Venice a willing passive man was sentenced to 7 years’ galley service, but the active
partner received 5 years.
In Rome the Inquisition gained jurisdiction control over sodomy cases, but made little use of it.
c1557 Michel de Montaigne meets Étienne de La Boétie and they have a very intense friendship for 4
until La Boétie dies from the plague. They complimented each other: Montaigne was
reserved; La Boétie was fiery.
Galateo by Giovanni della Casa. He warns against men having their hair curled or wearing
make-up or having effeminate clothing.
1558 17 January. Cardinal Charles de Lorraine reported that nephews of the straitlaced Pope Paul IV,
including Cardinal Carlo Carafa had “engaged in a sin so loathsome in which there is no
longer a distinction between the male and the female sex.”
Marc-Antoine Muret flees Venice after he is accused of attempting to sodomise the sons of
of some distinguished Venetian noblemen.
1559 Grazzini edits a collection of transgressive Florentine carnival songs full of double entendres.
Some of these are about male-male encounters.
A cantor at Toledo cathedral was accused of stating that male-male sex was not a sin against
nature.
January. Pope Paul IV exiles his nephews Carlo & Giovanni Carafa for their sexuality.
Pope Paul IV orders that male nudes in Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement should have loin-
cloths painted over them.
After Pope Paul IV’s death squibs appeared attacking Carlo Carafa for sodomy.
1560 A renegade returned to Spain had been taken captive at 14 to be the catamite of Hayreddin
Barbarosa, the most famous corsair of all.
In Kent not a single sexual case in the records for the past century is for sodomy.
1560-85 47 sodomy trials take place in Rome.
1561 Bacon’s mother writes to Anthony Bacon that Francis was keeping “that bloody Percy… as a
coach companion and a bed companion.”
April. Adrian the small servant of a Frenchman was accused of sex with a boy. He was
sentenced to be whipped.
In Middleburg 2 men were convicted of mutual masturbation and were sentenced to one year
in the galleys.
1562 A papal breve gave permission for the Portuguese inquisition to proceed against suspected
suspected sodomites.
In Geneva a long-standing couple who both performed active & passive roles were executed.
1562-1696 Frankfurt only punished 2 sodomites in this 34-year-period.
1563 Death of La Boétie, beloved friend of Michel de Montaigne. They may have had a same-
sex relationship.
Benvenuto Cellini abandons his autobiography. In it he relates the seduction career of the
of the beautiful & talented youth Luigi Pulci. He seduced several Roman bishops,
from one of whom he contracted syphilis.
Benoist Grealou, a priest at Moissac, was convicted of sodomy, and burnt alive.
Casiodoro del Reina, Minister of a Spanish Protestant Church in London, is forced to
flee with his lover (17), after being accused of sodomy.
c.1563 Giampaolo Lomazzo collector of information from those who had known Leonard da Vinci,
reports that Leonardo freely admitted committing sodomy with several men, but loved
Salaì the best.
1564 Death of Michelangelo.
The play Damon and Pithias by Richard Edwards is produced.
Philip Sidney & Fulke Greville meet for the first time as schoolboys.
1565 Before marriage to Mary Queen of Scots, Darnley is said to have had a sexual relationship
with David Rizzio.
Nasce la gioja mia by Giovan Primavera, a madrigal based on an arguably homoerotic poem.
1566 Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors by Thomas Harman mentions a barn of beggars
where every man had a woman “except it were 2 women that lay alone together for
some especial cause.”
A Moor dragged a youth into a hay-store for sex. He was released by the Portugese
Inquisition, but claimed sodomy was outlawed in his own country, but was permitted
in the land of the Turks.
A boatswain (40) in the Indies fleet was accused of making advances to 10+ pages &
grummets, aged 14-20.
Henri Etienne, Parisian scholar & printer, stated that the French acquired the trait of
sodomy either by going to the Ottoman Empire or Italy. He reports a case in Fontaines
in which a woman passed as a stableboy for 7 years, learned the trade of a vineyard
master, and married. After 2 years a dildo was discovered and the fraud uncovered.
The woman was arrested and burnt alive.
Philip II of Spain issued a special decree-law for sodomy cases in Sicily.
Pope Pius V issued a bull claiming that sodomy caused plague and other calamities. He
decreed that clergy found guilty should be degraded of their ecclesiastical offices
and have punishment similar to that meted out to laymen.
1567 A Florentine madrigal comedy contains a glancing allusion to male-male sexual acts.
In Naples a priest was accused of saying sodomy was not a sin. He justified himself by
claiming the circular shape of the host symbolised the arsehole, and that sodomy
was common amongst the saints.
Ralph Roister Doister by Nicholas Udall is published posthumously.
1567-1616 In Seville 71 men were executed for sodomy.
1568 Pope Pius V confirms his earlier decree in Horrendum illud scelus, making it clear that
guilty clergy should be degraded by the ecclesiastical judge and then immediately
delivered to the secular power.
In Middleburg more men were convicted of mutual masturbation and were sentenced to a
year in the galleys.
In Geneva a woman confessed to sex with both men and women. The judges were so
shocked at her crimes they wouldn’t reveal the exact nature of her crimes to the crowd.
Her punishment was drowning.
George Turberville visits the court of Ivan the Terrible and notes same-sex relationships,
which were the product of “a savage soil, where laws do bear no sway.
1570 Michael Hickes, Lord Burghley’s patronage secretary, writes an emotional jealous letter to
his close friend John Stubbe.
Pedro Justiniano, corsair of Tunis, is described as having committed sodomy with ‘Turks’ at
the Sardinian Inquisition.
Simon Ponz from Sevile, a captive in Algiers was accused of being the bardaxe of a
Turk, albeit under duress.
Giovan Primavera, composer, c.25, is alleged to have had sex with Luigi Dalla Balla (16) in
Loreto. He escaped to Venice.
A passive young man, (25) known as a fanchono, admitted to having had sex with many
partners of various ages to the Lisbon Inquisition.
December – July 1571. A man took a beggar (17) home every Sunday night paying
him 3 giuli each time. Where?
1571 During the Lepanto campaign blasphemy & sodomy were said to be prevalent.
1571-1600 In Valencia 107 sodomy trials were held.
1572 Hubert Languet (55), French diplomat & the poet Philip Sidney (19) escape Catholic
France & live in Frankfurt for a time.
In Lucca a trial takes place about a bathhouse where a boy (14) had been paid to wash men.
He was alleged to have been sodomized by 42 men.
A Carmelite friar in Valencia was denounced for persuading his fellow friars into performing
sexual acts with him. He was effeminate and mimicked female behaviour.
Pedro de Borja was denounced by several of his pageboys, but he was the step-brother of the
Duke of Gandía, so was absolved.
1573 Two Sicilian clergyman, (both 25) were accused of sodomizing each other in the sacristy of
a church.
Girolamo Muzio, poet, complains about Varchi’s poems in praise of the young Giulio della
Stuffa. Varchi was old fashioned in defending Socratic love.
1573-4A series of love letters passes between the diplomat, Hubert Languet & Philip Sidney.
1574 Francesco Gondola wrote a report on Ottoman practices. He stated that sodomites and their
passive partners were supposed to be thrown from the highest tower in the city, but
the proof required was so hard to obtain, that the sentence was hardly ever carried
out.
1575 John Stubbe sends a teasing letter to Michael Hickes, showing relationship was still prickly
after jealousy seen in 1570.
A Knight of Malta prepares a report which stated that Uluç Ali took pleasure in more than
300 page-boys.
In Barcelona prison, a Frenchman (20), encouraged other prisoners to sodomize him,
because he was used to it when he was in the galleys.
Virgil’s Bucolics were translated into English. This included “Corydon, a shepherd
unreasonably in love with a passing fair youth named Alexis.”
1576 Jorge Mendes Morato, a renegade, was accused of keeping 2 young converts as his catamites in Tangier. He said it was customary for renegades to commit sodomy with boys.
Pierre de L’Estoile: “These pretty mignons wore their hair pomaded, artificially curled and
curled and recurled, flowing back over their little velvet bonnets, like those of
whores in a bordello.”
In Lisbon, Gil a N.African convert to Islam, said he had often indulged in sodomy “because
in his land the only punishment was to be arrested and then freed after making a
payment.”
In Arnhem, Netherlands, a teacher was accused of sodomizing his pupils.
Accusations were made in print against Henri III of France and his favourites.
Otomo Yoshikata, a Japanese lord, is baptised into the Christina faith, but he was unable to
relinquish his passion for young pages.
This was the last year the Wakefield Mystery Plays were performed including the Killing of
Abel, which contains many puns on same-sex activity.
14 December. Torquato Tasso, poet (32), writes a letter: “I love him [Orazio Ariosto (21)], and I shall love him for some months, for too strong was the impression that
love made in my soul to erase it in a few days.”
1577 Description of England by William Harrison contains a passage in which he describes
women wearing doublets with pendant codpieces on their breasts. He found their
gender ambiguous.
June. Catherine de’ Medici holds a ball at which her son, Henry III appears in female attire.
He may have preferred same-sex activity.
Stephan Gerlach reports a conversation of a Hungarian slave in Istanbul. He claimed that
some young boys dress up and parade to be chosen as playthings of Turks.
The Prince of Castelvetrano wrote to Madrid complaining about the prevalence of sodomy in
Sicily.
Curzio Marignolli’s dialogue between 2 women. 2 sodomitical episodes are referred to
briefly.
1578 July. Report by Michel de Montaigne. 11 mainly Iberian men were arrested on the outskirts
of Rome. 2 of these had been companions for 15 years. It is thought a mock-
marriage ceremony was going to be included between Gasparo (passive) &
Gioseffe (active). The latter, a friar was ill & missing from the gathering, but
Gasparo after a 3-week trial was executed.
22 July. Saint-Mégrin was hacked to pieces by 20 men; he was mourned extravagantly by
the king, who erected an elaborate tomb.
December. John Lyly’s Euphues is published, which features two men who share a bed.
Paul de Stuer de Caussade (Saint-Mégrin) was made a gentleman of the King’s bedchamber
(Henri III).
Mustafa, a renegade (20) was taken at the age of 5 as a captive to Algiers where he was used as a catamite and passive partner.
In Naples another priest was denounced for saying sodomy was not a sin.
In Bruges 2 Franciscans had a sexual relationship for 20 years - both performed active &
passive roles.
Rumours begin to circulate in Frankfurt about pâté baker Ludwig Boudin’s same-sex
preferences. He wasn’t prosecuted for them for another 20 years.
1579 Spenser’s The Shepheardes Calendar. In ‘January’ Hobbinol is in love with Colin Clout. His
love seems more mature by ‘April.’ The poem was accompanied by a commentary
by ‘E.K. [Spenser himself?], which notes: “in this place seems to be some savour
of disorderly love, which the learned call pederastic…and so is pederastic much to
be preferred before gynerastic, that is the love which enflames men with lust
towards womankind.”
Blaise de Vigenère, humanist, dedicates his monumental Trois Dialogues de l’amitié to Henri III. Aimer is reserved to that bond between men – love of a male friend.
The School of Abuse by Stephen Gosson. Boys on stage employ “effeminate gestures, to
ravish the sense; and wanton speech to whet desire to inordinate lust; the theatres
of the period “effeminate the mind, as pricks unto vice.”
Young King James VI of Scotland (13) meets and falls in love with Esmé Stuart (37).
Jean Carlier visited Istanbul where he found the sin of sodomy was widely practised
especially among great men.
Hans Jacob Breuning von Buchenbach travels kin the Ottoman Empire. He later says: “the
Turks are great sodomites; that devilish vice is quite common in the high and
low class”.
Two boys (17) in Seville were found guilty of “immoral touchings” [mutual masturbation]
and were burnt at the stake.
Torquato Tasso, poet (35), is confined to an asylum, before this time he seems to have
exclusively indulged in same-sex relationships. After this date he was chaste.
1580Montaigne’s Essays published, which includes ‘On Friendship.’
Michel de Montaigne
Montaigne on a visit to Rome notes that at the Church of St John marriages were held between
male couples. Montaigne (47) was travelling with young noblemen & a very young
secretary.
Montaigne also discovered that a few years before 7-8 girls from Chaumone en Bassigny decided to live and dress as men. One lived as a young weaver and became engaged to a woman in Vitry, but this was called off. The weaver moved to Montier en Der, where he
married a young woman. However, after 4-5 months the weaver was recognised as
Mary. She was hanged for “having by unlawful practices and inventions, supplied the
defects of her sex.”
Rome’s anti-sodomy statutes decreed burning at the stake, but younger individuals were handled at the judge’s discretion.
Matthew Heaton (clerk) of East Grinstead was accused of sodomizing a boy.
In Cuzco (Peru) a priest was charged after saying sex was a human necessity, and that if one
cannot get a woman, doing it in a hand or an arse was the answer.
Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was accused of “buggering a boy that is his cook and many
other boys,” but his case never came to trial.
A girl in Marne was hanged for refusing to return to “the state of a girl.”
1581 In the Valencian Royal Court a Frenchman (27), accused of sodomy, was quickly asked if he
had spent time in Italy.
15 February. Montaigne’s young secretary mysteriously disappears in Rome.
1582 November. John Gostlin, young scholar, arrives in Gonville & Gaius College, Cambridge &
meets Thomas Legge, fellow & master of the college. They would share a tomb 44
years later.
c.1582 The ballad Bewick and Graham was composed in the borders. It is the most enduring ballad of
sworn brotherhood.
1583 The Anatomy of Abuses by Philip Stubbes fails to mention same-sex relations as a vice.
However, it includes: “Then these goodly pageants being done, every mate sorts to his
mate…they play the sodomites or worse.”
Matteo Ricci, visiting Peking found that male prostitution was legal and practised openly.
1584 Luis de Pedro admitted he had been an unconsenting bardaxo for 2 years.
In Lima a Dominican priest tried for sodomy claimed a demon tormented him into performing
shameful acts.
Anton Francesco Grazzini, Italian writer dies – his poems are the only source which display his
frank attraction to young men.
In Paris an Italian is burnt for sodomy.
1585 Machuco, a black freed slave was executed in Seville for procuring youths for sodomy with
adults.
In Portugal a Spanish Boy (16) was found to have been sodomized 40 times in 4 months by a
“Turk”.
Philip II of Spain decreed that anyone found guilty of sodomy by the inquisition should be
handed over to the secular authorities to receive the legal punishment ie death.
In Lima a preacher claimed that the South Americans were conquered because they allowed
sodomy to prevail.
1585-6 The Sultan sent an order to Bursa that he decreed that smooth-cheeked young men should not be
employed in bathhouses.
In Mallorca a young man (20) relates the humorous story of St Peter’s attempt to bugger a
donkey, which Christ realises and makes an explicit quip about.
Thomas Ogle, Steward of one of Sir Francis Drake’s ships was executed for buggery with 2
boys.
1586 Anthony Bacon is charged with sodomy, while on a diplomatic mission to France. His pages
gave evidence. “The English gentleman spent hours, day and night, in his room
with his pages. Isaac Burgades would mount a younger page, David Boysson, & they
couldn’t see anything wrong with it. Bathelemy Sore, claimed that his master
buggered all the boys and then bribed them with sweetmeats to keep quiet. Henry
of Navarre intervened, an appeal was made & the sentence quashed.
In Paris, Nicholas Dadon, teacher, was executed for sodomizing one of his pupils.
Anthony Bacon
1587 The Second Part of the Tritameron of Love by Robert Greene is published, which lists several
supposed same-sex lovers from Greek mythology.
27 January. Death of Rev. Nicholas Morton in Rome. He was buried in the same grave as Rev.
John Seton, who had died more than 20 years earlier.
November. Evidence against Anthony Bacon was heard again, but he escaped retribution.
John Hoyle, lawyer, was accused of sodomy with poulterer, William Bristow. The verdict
was ‘ignoramus,’ meaning there was not enough convincing evidence.
Dr Jorge Moreira (67), priest, voluntarily confessed to active & passive sodomy over 7 years
with his servants.
In Venice a priest was accused for saying God sodomized the angels.
In Sicily a man alleged that St Lawrence was burned on a gridiron as a punishment for
buggery.
1588 An expanded edition of Montaigne’s Essays is published.
A Venetian nobleman investigated a sexual scandal in Istanbul. Sodomitical acts were
alleged to have taken place between a trainee dragoman & junior members of
embassy staff.
In Seville an abusive schoolmaster sodomized several schoolboys, but they remained
unpunished.
A cleric in Seville (56) was found in bed with a very young lad, but they were both burnt.
In the Philippines 14-15 Chinese men were arrested for paying youths for sex. 2 were
executed, the remainder were flogged.
1589 The possibly homosexual Henri III of France is assassinated by a Dominican Friar.
Ciceronis Amor by Robert Greene is published, which lists the same-sex lovers mentioned in
his 1587 play.
Bartolomé Catalan was accused of making a young captive his passive sexual partner in
Algiers.
Diego Galán (14) was captured off the Algerian coast, a corsair captain ran his hands through
the boy’s hair, and said he wouldn’t come to any harm.
The Republic of Ragusa [Dubrovnik] appointed 5 officials to secretly look for those
indulging in sodomy.
In Cambridge several scholars fabricated a buggery case against a hated master.
1590 Spenser lists male lovers in pairs in The Faerie Queene. These include Damon & Pythias.
John Donne (18) writes 4 homoerotically-charged poems to ‘T.W.’, which may have been
Thomas Woodward (16)
The Life & Pranks of Long Meg of Westminster appears. Long Meg dressed as a man, and
bested those who accosted her.
In Barcelona, a teacher (19), molested a number of boys, aged 7-15.
In Siena, Agostino da Montalcino in his guide for confessors believed the word sodomy
should only be used for consummated same-sex acts.
Near Prague a schoolmaster is executed for molesting his pupils.
c.1590 Valegnani, a Jesuit in Japan, complained that “the gravest of their sins is the most depraved
of carnal desires…The young men and their partners, not thinking it serious, do not
hide it.”
1591 Felipa de Souza was convicted and tortured for having sex with other women. check
‘A brothel of catamites’ was unearthed in Naples. Fake marriage services between
Augustinian friars and boys were performed, as were blasphemous parodies of
confession and penance, involving an erect penis.
c1591 A visitation to Bahia, S.America revealed that a native (Joane) acted like a female to many
men, particularly with another native (Constantino), with whom he lived like
wife to his husband.
1592 Marlowe writes Edward II. It includes the lines: “Sometimes a lovely boy in Dian’s shape/
With hair that gilds the water as it glides…/And in his sportful hands an olive
tree,/To hide those parts which men delight to see.”
A married father of 3 was accused of mutual masturbation & grabbing other men’s genitals
over a 20-year period. Where? More detail
c1592 At an Oxford college Augustine Baker, Welsh Benedictine, later reported in a biased account
that buggery was rife.
1592-1700 In the Duchy of Wüttemberg only 3 cases of sodomy were prosecuted.
1593 26 January. The Massacre at Paris by Christopher Marlowe performed. The same-sex
aspect is represented by Henri III and his ‘mignoins’ Mougeron, Joyeuse & Epernon.
Venus & Adonis by Shakespeare – a male body is eroticised, rather than a female’s.
Michael Drayton writes the poem Piers Gaveston.
Robert Greene’s Mamillia again lists several same-sex lovers.
Richard Baines accuses Christopher Marlowe of believing that “St John the Evangelist
was bedfellow to Christ and leaned always in his bosom; that he used him as the
sinners of Sodoma.”
Henry Barrow, religious reformer, is executed. He had argued that conventions of
masculine friendships were a cover for sodomy.
A cobbler was tried in Lisbon for active and passive sex with 31+ male youths (aged 15-18)
in Olinda, Brazil.
In London Adam Hill preached about several things. When he eventually mentioned sodomy
he referred back 60 years to the monks alleged to be involved in those activities.
c1593 John Donne’s first sonnet mentions a prostitute boy.
1594 Dido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe published. Venus calls Ganymede “that
female wanton boy.”
The Affectionate Shepheard by Richard Barnfield. Daphnis, the shepherd, idolizes
Ganymede’s beauty. It includes these lines: “If it be a sin to love a lovely lad,/Oh
then sin I.” and later: “Of that fair boy that my heart entangled/ Cursing the time,
the place, the sense the sin/I came, I saw, I viewed, I slipped in.”
Piers Gaveston Earle of Cornwall by Michael Drayton. The homoerotic content was
removed from later editions.
Sir Francis Bacon’s mother complains to her other queer son, Anthony that Francis: “keeps
that bloody Percy…as a coach companion and bed companion.”
A young Francis Bacon
Caravaggio shared rooms in Cardinal Del Monte’s palace with a young painter, Mario
Minniti for 6 years.
2 men in Nuremberg were “burnt for the Florentine vice”. ie sodomy.
In Naples a man appeared before the inquisition because he kept a beardless boy for sex. He
argued it was natural, and if he could gain a dispensation he would have taken
him for a wife.
In Essex a village schoolmaster was accused of teaching his pupils “all matter of bawdry.”
1594-1692 In Nuremburg in this 100-year-period only 4 sodomites were punished.
1595 Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet includes the homo-social banter of Mercutio and Romeo.
Spenser’s ‘Astrophel.’ An elegy for Sir Philip Sidney.
The posthumous version of Montaigne’s Essays – explains his love for Etienne de La Boétie: “Because it was him, because it was me.”
10 men in Potosí & Sucre (now in Bolivia) were involved in a sodomy trial. The alleged
offence involved “a rotation of sexual couples.”
Cynthia, with Certayne Sonnets by Richard Barnfield. Many are overtly about same-sex
activity.
In Pernambuco, S. America, Baltazar da Lomba (30), was convicted of sodomy with many
men. He was always the passive partner.
Pròspero Farinacci is accused of sodomising several times Berardino Rocchi (16). Pope Clement VIII pardons him, thus saving his life.
Tobie Matthew appears in a play at Gray’s Inn and becomes Francis Bacon’s most intimate
friend.
c.1595 Jean Benedicti believed that a masturbating man who thought of other men while in the act
was guilty of sodomy. He also said that sodomitical copulation had to include
both anal penetration and ejaculation.
André de Freitas Lessa, a Brazilian cobbler, attracted youths to his house & workshop
& encouraged them to have sex with each other.
1596 Václav Vratislav was warned by an Ottoman official that young people were in great danger
from Turks and renegades, who were disgraceful sodomites.
The King of Portugal was asked by the Council of the Inquisition how they should proceed in
the case of a nobleman found guilty on evidence of 7 sexual partners in Goa.
A youth in Mallorca (18) confessed to many acts of sodomy. He implied the anus was given
to mankind by God for enjoyment.
The Golden Lotus circulates in manuscript. A novel including bisexual relationships.
1597 In Lima, a Franciscan Friar (31), admitted he had sodomized many innocent novice, Friars, and had previously done the same to 4 Mexican youths.
1597-8 Joris Van der Does, Dutch traveller, witnessed a good-looking youth being abducted in an
Istanbul street.
In Barcelona a Sicilian surgeon (30) was prosecuted for sodomy. He argued that Adam had
taken Eve from behind. The anus had been given to mankind so “that one
could enjoy oneself.”
1598 Posthumous publication of Christopher Marlowe’s Hero and Leander. Neptune mistakes the
naked Leander for Ganymede and almost drown him while caressing him.
“Some swore he was a maid in man’s attire,/For in his looks were all that men
desire.” Marlowe stresses Leander’s naked beauty.
Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Lost includes a line from Armado which says he allows his
master “with his royall finger thus” to “dallie with my excrement.”
Skialetheia by Edward Guilpin. A sodomite is one “who is at every play and every night
sups with his ingles.”
Giovanni Battista Della Porta, Neapolitan natural philosopher, wrote a treatise on
physiognomy, which included a section on effeminate men.
In Frankfurt pâté baker Ludwig Boudin’s sodomy trial takes place, where he foolishly
confessed his love for one of the young men on trial (1578). He was
continually tortured, then left in the pillory, and finally exiled.
The Scourge of Villainy, a satirical poem by John Marston, refers to male stews. In the same year his Metamorphosis of Pygmalion’s Image has a ‘Ganymede’ who is
secretly hired for sex.
In John Florio’s Italian/English Dictionary a Catamito is “one hired to sin against nature, an
ingle, a ‘Ganymede.’”
1599 The Passionate Shepherd to his Love by Christopher Marlowe. It is believed that the poem
may have been addressed to a boy of London.
Th’Overthrow of Stage-Plays by John Rainolds. It contains a brief reference to boys playing
women which could inflame unnatural lust.
Micro-Cynicon by Thomas Middleton includes the lines: “the streets are full of Juggling
parasites/With the true shape of virgin’s counterfeits.”
Mustafa Ali in a description of Cairo alleged that uncouth salaried cavalrymen employed
young Arab page-boys so that at night “they all in concord engage in the
act of the tribe of Lot.”
When the Earl of Southampton was in Ireland it was alleged by William Reynolds, that he
lay with Captain Edmonds. Southampton would coll [embrace] and hug him
in his arms and play wantonly with him.”
c1599 Thomas Middleton wrote a poem, ‘Ingling Pyander’, featuring an effeminate man, who may
have been available for sex.
1600 Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice is printed. The relationship between Antonio and
Bassanio is open to a same-sex attraction reading.
The Roman Inquisition formally announced it did not involve itself in sodomy cases.
Domeninco Cresti’s Bathers at Saint Niccolò is painted. Its multiple nearly nude males has
led it to be labelled “an important example of homoerotic art” of that period.
In Zurich in the previous century there were only 8 executions for sodomy.
In Brussels & the surrounding areas there were only 26 convictions for sodomy in the
previous century.
In Ghent in the preceding century 14 men were executed for sodomy, and another 7 were
fined.
14 April. Tommaso Campanella, Italian scholar & philosopher, whilst being spied on in
prison, said to his cellmate: “O Father Pietro, why don’t you do something
so that we may sleep together, and we may get pleasure?” Pietro replied: “I
wish I could, and I’d even bribe the gaolers with ten ducats. But to you, my
heart, I would like to give twenty kisses ever hour.”
The Cobbe Portrait - a disputed likeness of a younger Shakespeare
Bibliography
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Bray, Alan, The Friend, University of Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Bray, Alan, Homosexuality in Renaissance England, Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Griffin, Gabriele, (ed.), Who’s Who in Lesbian & Gay Writing, Routledge: London, 2002.
Malcolm, Noel, Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations, 1400-1759, Oxford: OUP, 2024.
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Rowse, A.L., Homosexuals in History, London: Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, 1977.
Spencer, Colin, Homosexuality, a History, London: Fourth Estate, 1995.
Warner, Kathryn, Sex and Sexuality in Medieval England, Yorkshire: Pen & Sword History, 2022.
Woods, Gregory, Homosexuality in Literature, London: Yale University Press, 1998.
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