ITALY
c8500-5500 BC ~ Cave paintings from the Val Camonica region contain the
earliest known depictions of sex between men.
AD 37-68 ~ Emperor Nero married his castrated slave Sporus and kissed
him frequently in public; according to Suetonius he later married his
freedman Doryphorus.
14th/15th century ~ Perugia poets often wrote of same-sex love.
AD 76-138 ~ Emporor Hadrian greatly loved his former slave Antonius, and
honoured him after his death by building him a city (AntinoøΩpolis) and
placing statues and busts of him in every major city of the empire.
c102-44 BC ~ Julius Caesar was notoriously bisexual; he was refered to
as omnium virorum mulier, omnium mulierum virum (a wife to all men and a
woman to all husbands). One of his 'conquests' was Nicodemus, King of
Bythinia.
1475-1564 ~ Michelangelo, one of the world's greatest painters and
sculptors, most famous for the Sistene Chapel ceiling (1508-1512). His
love for the male form is seen in the fabulously muscled male and female
figures in his paintings.
1573-1610 ~ Caravaggio was perhaps the most innovative painter of his
time, being years ahead of his time as the first artist to paint
realistically. He caused much controversy in his day by daring to depict
Biblical figures as real people; earthy, working-class, 'warts-and-all'
human beings; even his saints had dusty feet. The 17th century critic
Borsieri said of him "...he was so accurate and ingenious an imitator of
nature, that what other painters are wont merely to promise he has
accomplished"
Caravaggio's paintings are stark and sometimes harsh in their
uncompromising realism, with dramatic contasts in light and dark that
often makes his figures appear like illuminated characters on a dark
stage. However, much of his work is also very warm and sensual,
celebrating the beauty of the male body. Much of his work is also
gentle, as in his nativity paintings and in the tender St Francis in
Ecstacy.
15th century ~ Platonist philosopher Marsilio Ficino noted that some men
"naturally love males".
You will be more than welcome.