LGBT history in Italy

This article is about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history in Italy.

BCE
Etruscan fresco - Males having sex.
  • 5th millennium BC - Examples of homosexual eroticism in Upper Paleolithic or Mesolithic European art, including a rock incision found in Addaura, Sicily, depicting a group of people dancing around two men, both with erections, possibly indicating a homoerotic ritual.[1][2]
  • 530 BC – One of the earliest examples of Etruscan art on homosexuality, found in 1892 in the Necropolis of Monterozzi near Tarquinia. The painting, situated in what has been called the Tomb of the Bulls (Italian: Tomba dei Tori), depicts on the right a bull with a man's face (Acheloos) and an erect phallus that is aggressively approaching two men having sexual intercourse. On the left, another bull is turned around, as though indifferent, in front of men and women having sexual intercourse. The women are consistently depicted in light tones, while the men are brown. Under the frieze is Achilles (on the left) waylaying Troilus. This representation is the only one in archaic Tarquinian parietal painting representing a scene derived from Greek mythology; it used the legend about the bisexuality of Achilles to demonstrate that, among the Greeks, same-sex love was a common and ordinary fact. This shows how, even then, homosexuality could be a worthwhile topic in the conflict between populations. Below is the tree of life, full of leaves, linked by the sash of life with the skeletal tree of death, with the black festoon of death hanging from a branch. The onomastic inscription in the centre of the upper frieze names he who probably was the owner of the tomb: Aranth Suprianas.
  • 470 BC – An important example is the "Tomb of the Diver" in Paestum, in particular the painted scene of the Symposium.

600 BC-1 BC
Main article: Homosexuality in ancient Rome
  • 509 BC – The Roman Republic is founded. Homosexuality, as in Greece, is widespread and legalized throughout the Roman heyday, from the Republic to the Empire (see Homosexuality in ancient Rome).
  • 149 BC – The Lex Scantinia, a Roman law, regulates homosexuality for the first time on record. According to the law, homosexuality should be denied between freeborn adult males and for the youth of noble families not to participate in male prostitution. It is also probable that such a law was meant to prevent the possibility of a noble-born man becoming subject to sodomy by a slave.[3]

1st century BC
  • 100 BC—100 AD – Found in the Terme suburbane of Pompei are the only representation of a lesbian scene surviving from the Roman era, and also a fresco of triple intercourse between men.
  • 80 BC – Julius Caesar allegedly has a love affair with king Nicomedes IV of Bithynia.[4]
  • 57 BC–54 BC – Catullus writes the Carmina, including love poems to Giovenzio, boasting of sexual prowess with youth and including violent invective against passive sodomites.
  • 42 BC–39 BC – Virgil writes the Eclogæ vel Bucolica, with many references to homosexual love and relationship.
  • 27 BC – The Roman Empire begins with the reign of Augustus. The first recorded same-sex marriages occur during this period.[5]
  • 26, 25, and 18 BC – Tibullus writes the Carmina, with references to homosexuality.

Romans, like Greeks, tolerated love and sex among men. Two Roman Emperors publicly married men, some had gay lovers themselves, and homosexual prostitution was taxed. However, like the Greeks, passivity and effeminacy were not tolerated, and an adult male freeborn Roman could lose his citizen status if caught performing fellatio or being penetrated.[6]

1st century CE
  • 54 – Nero becomes Emperor of Rome. Nero married two men in legal ceremonies, Pythagoras and Sporus, with the later accorded the same honours as a Caesar's wife.[7]
  • 98 – Trajan, one of the most beloved of Roman emperors, begins his reign. Trajan was well known for his homosexuality and fondness for young males. This was used to advantage by the king of Edessa, Abgar VII, who, after incurring the anger of Trajan for some misdeed, sent his handsome young son to make his apologies, thereby obtaining pardon.[8]

2nd century
  • 165 – Christian martyr Giustino writes: "We have learned that is an evil thing to show newborns, since we see that almost everyone, not only the girls but boys too, are forced into prostitution".[9]

3rd century
  • 218 – The emperor Elagabalus's reign begins. At different times, Elagabalus marries five women and a man named Zoticus, an athlete from Smyrna, in a lavish public ceremony at Rome;[10] but the Syrian's most stable relationship is with the chariot driver Hierocles, and Cassius Dio says Elagabalus delighted in being called Hierocles' mistress, wife, and queen.[11] The emperor wears makeup and wigs, prefers to be called a lady and not a lord, and offers vast sums to any physician who can provide him with a vagina;[11][12] for this reason, the emperor is seen by some writers as an early transgender or transsexual figure and one of the first on record as seeking sex reassignment surgery.[11][12][13][14]
  • 244–249 – Emperor Philip the Arab tries and fails to outlaw homosexual prostitution.[6]

4th century

5th century
  • 498 – In spite of the laws against gay sex, the Christian emperors continued to collect taxes on male prostitutes until the reign of Anastasius I, who finally abolishes the tax in favor of sampling of the best men.[17]

6th century

1000-1599
  • 1051 – Peter Damian writes the treatise Liber Gomorrhianus, in which he argues for stricter punishments for clerics failing their duty against "vices of nature."[19]
  • 1140 – The Italian Monk Gratian compiles his work Decretum Gratiani, in which he argues that sodomy is the worst of all the sexual sins because it involves using the male member in an unnatural way.[6]
  • 1179 – The Third Lateran Council of Rome issues a decree for the excommunication of sodomites.

13th century
  • 1232 – Pope Gregory IX starts the Inquisition in the Italian City-States. Some cities called for banishment and/or amputation as punishments for 1st- and 2nd-offending sodomites and burning for the 3rd or habitual offenders.
  • 1250–1300 – Homosexual activity radically passes from being completely legal in the most of Europe to incurring the death penalty in most European states.[20]
  • 1265 – Thomas Aquinas argues that sodomy is second only to murder in the ranking of sins.[6]

14th century
Dante and Virgil interview the Sodomites, from Guido da Pisa's commentary on the Commedia, c. 1345
  • 1321 – Dante's Inferno places sodomites in the Seventh Circle.
  • 1345 -- Guido da Pisa writes a commentary on Divine Commedia, in which an illustration depicts Dante, Virgil, and homosexuals.
  • 1347 – Rolandino Roncaglia is trialed for sodomy, an event that caused a sensation in Italy. He confessed he "had not ever had sexual intercourses neither with his wife nor with any other woman because he didn't ever felt any carnal appetite, nor he couldn't ever have an erection of his virile member". After his wife died of plague, Rolandino started to prostitute himself, wearing female dresses because "since he has female look, voice and movements – although he hasn't the female orifice but has male member and testicles – many persons considered him to be a woman because of his appearance".[21]

15th century
  • 1476 – Florentine court records of 1476 show that Leonardo da Vinci and three other young men were charged with sodomy, and acquitted.[22]

16th century

17th century
Lot (biblical person) and Daughters of Lot by Artemisia Gentileschi, 1638
  • 1620s - Lesbian nun Benedetta Carlini, the abbess of the Convent of the Mother of God in Pescia, shares her cell with Sister Bartolomea. When the two nuns make love, Sister Benedetta experiences mystical visions and angelic possession. The ecclesiastic forces of the Counter-Reformation investigate her mystical experiences and, upon discovering her lesbian sexuality, strip her of her position as abbess and hold her under guard for the remainder of her life.
  • 1638 -- Artemisia Gentileschi paints Lot and his Daughters after the Book of Genesis 18 and 19. The story tells how Lot and his daughters escape fire and brimstone against Sodom and Gomorrah as a consequence for gay sex.

18th century
  • 1755 - Gay art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann comes to Rome and spends the rest of his life in Italy, where he earns the admiration of his intellectual contemporaries such as Goethe and Herder for his masterful studies of ancient Roman art, replete with loving descriptions of the homoeroticism found therein.[23]
  • 1797 Giacomo Casanova writes in Histoire de Ma Vie about an ambassador, M. de Mocenigo and his lover, Manucci.[24]

19th century
The French Emperor Napoleon, under whose rule homosexuality was legal in much of Italy

20th century
  • 1930–1945 - Benito Mussolini's Fascist government institutes the Rocco Code, which does not cover homosexuality. The government punishes male homosexual behaviour with administrative punishment, such as public admonition and confinement; gays were persecuted in the later years of the regime[27] and under the Italian Social Republic of 1943–45. The Rocco Code survived the Mussolini government.
  • 1985 - On June 28, Franco Grillini helps establish the Circolo Omosessuale Ventotto Giugno in Bologna, the first gay group to receive government funding. It is later renamed Arcigay, which becomes one of Italy's most prominent LGBT rights organizations.

21st century

2000-2004

In 2002, Franco Grillini introduced legislation that would modify article III of the Italian Constitution to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.[28][29] It was not successful.

In 2004, Tuscany became the first Italian region to ban discrimination against homosexuals[30] in the areas of employment, education, public services, and accommodations. The Berlusconi government challenged the new law in court, asserting that only the central government had the right to pass such a law. The Constitutional Court overturned the provisions regarding accommodations (with respect to private homes and religious institutions), but otherwise upheld most of the legislation.[31] Since then, the region of Piedmont has enacted a similar measure.[32]

Furthermore, since 2003, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment is illegal throughout the whole country, in conformity with EU directives.

2005-2009

In 2006, Grillini again introduced a proposal to expand anti-discrimination laws, this time adding gender identity as well as sexual orientation.[29] It received less support than the previous one had.

In 2006 a police officer was reportedly fired for cross-dressing in public while off duty.[33]

The first transgender MP was Vladimir Luxuria, who was elected in 2006 as a representative of the Communist Refoundation Party. While she was not reelected, she went on to be the winner of a popular reality television show called L`Isola dei Famosi.[34]

On 8 February 2007 the government led by Romano Prodi introduced a bill[35] which would have granted rights in areas of labour law, inheritance, taxation and health care to same-sex and opposite-sex unregistered partnerships. The bill was never made a priority of the legislature and was eventually dropped when a new Parliament was elected after the Prodi government lost a confidence vote.

In 2007, an ad showing a baby wearing a wristband label that said "homosexual" caused controversy. The ads were part of a regional government campaign to combat anti-gay discrimination.[36]

In 2008, Danilo Giuffrida was awarded 100,000 euros compensation after having been ordered to re-take his driving test by the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport due to his sexuality; the judge said that the Ministry of Transport was in clear breach of anti-discrimination laws.[37]

In 2009, the Italian Chamber of Deputies shelved a proposal against homophobic hate-crimes, that would have allowed increased sentences for violence against homosexuals, approving the preliminary questions moved by Union of the Centre and supported by Lega Nord and The People of Freedom[38] (although 9 deputies, politically near to the President of the Chamber Gianfranco Fini, have voted against).[39] The deputy Paola Binetti, who belongs to Democratic Party, has voted against the party guidelines.[40]

2010-present

2016: Italy approves same-sex civil unions [41]

gollark: Or at least have any significant control over events.
gollark: I'm pretty sure they don't exist.
gollark: How apioform of you. I will literally a bee to your location.
gollark: ALL plants are weeds. This is why GTech™ contraphotosynthetic lasers.
gollark: Oh dear.

See also

References
  1. Penczak, Christopher (2003). Gay Witchcraft: Empowering the Tribe. York Beach: Red Wheel/Weiser. p. 11. ISBN 1-57863-281-1. Retrieved 2012-11-02. They encircle two other bird-masked men, both with erect penises. Parallel lines connect the neck to the buttocks and ankles and the penis of one man to the buttocks of another. Thought by most scholars to be a sacrificial rite in which the parallel lines represent bindings, other interpreters see this as a homoerotic initiatory rite, with the lines possibly representing male energy, or even ejaculation.
  2. Timeline of more History
  3. Sergio Musitelli, Maurizio Bossi, Remigio Allegri, Storia dei costumi sessuali in occidente dalla preistoria ai giorni nostri, Rusconi, Milano 1999, pp. 126–127.
  4. Suetonius, Julius 2–3; Plutarch, Caesar 2–3; Cassius Dio, Roman History 43.20
  5. Martial attests to same-sex marriages between men during the early Roman Empire, although these had no legal status; see Martial, Epigrams 1.24, 12.42
  6. (Fone, 2000)
  7. Ancient History Sourcebook: Suetonius: De Vita Caesarum-Nero, c. 110 C.E Although this action was criticized by contemporary historians, these same historians do not criticize emperors such as Hadrian and Trajan who also had male lovers. The real reason behind the criticism of Nero and Elagabalus is that both of these emperors ignored the Senators (who wrote the surviving historical accounts) and appointed low class men (such as freedmen) to important positions of power, thereby incurring the hatred of the Senatorial class.
  8. Dio Cassius, Epitome of Book 68.6.4; 68.21.2–6.21.3
  9. Apologia I, 27, UTA, RANKE-HEINEMANN, Eunuchi per il regno dei cieli, Rizzoli 1990, p. 66.
  10. Augustan History, Life of Elagabalus 10
  11. Varner, Eric (2008). "Transcending Gender: Assimilation, Identity, and Roman Imperial Portraits". Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Supplementary volume. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. 7: 200–201. ISSN 1940-0977. JSTOR 40379354. OCLC 263448435. Elagabalus is also alleged to have appeared as Venus and to have depilated his entire body. ... Dio recounts an exchange between Elagabalus and the well-endowed Aurelius Zoticus: when Zoticus addressed the emperor as 'my lord,' Elagabalus responded, 'Don't call me lord, I am a lady.' Dio concludes his anecdote by having Elagabalus asking his physicians to give him the equivalent of a woman's vagina by means of a surgical incision.
  12. Tess deCarlo, Trans History (ISBN 1387846353), page 32
  13. Godbout, Louis (2004). "Elagabalus" (PDF). GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. Chicago: glbtq, Inc. Retrieved 2007-08-06.
  14. Benjamin, Harry; Green, Richard (1966). The Transsexual Phenomenon, Appendix C: Transsexualism: Mythological, Historical, and Cross-Cultural Aspects. New York: The Julian Press, Inc. Archived from the original on 2007-07-17. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
  15. Theodosian Code 9.7.3: "When a man 'marries' in the manner of woman, a 'woman' about to offer himself to men what does he wish (Cum vir nubit in femina, femina viros proiectura, quid capiat), when sex has lost all its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed to another form; when love is sought and not found? We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be, guilty may be subjected to exquisite punishment. This is denunciation of these pretended marriages which had no legal force
  16. (Theodosian Code 9.7.6): All persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind in avenging flames in the sight of the people.
  17. Evagrius Ecclesiastical History 3.39
  18. Justinian Novels 77, 144
  19. PETRI DAMIANI Liber gomorrhianus , ad Leonem IX Rom. Pon. in Patrologiae Cursus completus...accurante J.P., MIGNE, series secunda, tomus CXLV, col. 161; CANOSA, Romano, Storia di una grande paura La sodomia a Firenze e a Venezia nel quattrocento, Feltrinelli, Milano 1991, pp.13–14
  20. John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980) p. 293.
  21. storia completa qui Archived 2015-05-11 at the Wayback Machine
  22. della Chiesa, Angela Ottino (1967). The Complete Paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. p. 83.
  23. Kuzniar, Alice A. (1996). Alice A. Kuzniar (ed.). Outing Goethe and His Age. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. pp. 9–16. ISBN 0804726140. Retrieved February 26, 2014.
  24. Casanova, Jacques (1894). The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova. Arthur Machen. Privately Printed.
  25. Benadusi, Lorenzo, et al. “Chapter 5.” Homosexuality in Italian Literature, Society, and Culture, 1789-1919, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017, pp. 115–119.
  26. "Where is it illegal to be gay?". BBC News. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
  27. (in Italian) L’omosessualità in Italia Archived 2008-08-04 at the Wayback Machine
  28. Pedote, Paolo; Nicoletta Poidimani (2007). We will survive!: lesbiche, gay e trans in Italia. Mimesis Edizioni. p. 181.
  29. Borrillo, Daniel (2009). Omofobia. Storia e critica di un pregiudizio. Edizioni Dedalo. p. 155.
  30. Text of Legislation (in Italian) Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
  31. Text of Decision (in Italian) Archived 2007-10-19 at the Wayback Machine
  32. Text of Legislation (in Italian) Archived 2007-10-19 at the Wayback Machine
  33. "Cross-dressing Italian cop given the boot". UPI. 29 December 2006.
  34. "Luxuria: "Ora la sinistra mi critica ma vado avanti"" (in Italian). il Giornale. 25 November 2008. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
  35. "Italy may recognise unwed couples". BBC News. 9 February 2007. Retrieved 13 July 2008.
  36. "Gay newborn poster sparks row in Italy". Reuters. 25 October 2007.
  37. "Italian wins gay driving ban case". BBC News. 13 July 2008. Retrieved 13 July 2008.
  38. "Camera affossa testo di legge su omofobia". Reuters (in Italian). 13 October 2009. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
  39. "Omofobia, testo bocciato alla Camera E nel Pd esplode il caso Binetti". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). 13 October 2009. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
  40. "Omofobia, la Camera affossa il testo Caos nel Pd: riesplode il caso Binetti". La Stampa (in Italian). 13 October 2009. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
  41. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/world/europe/italy-gay-same-sex-unions.html?_r=0
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