LGBT history in Italy

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

prior to 1600

• 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

• 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 adult males and for male prostitution to protect the youth of noble families. It is 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]

AD 1-599

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 begins his reign. He marries a man named Zoticus, an athlete from Smyrna, in a lavish public ceremony at Rome amid the rejoicings of the public.^[10]
• 244–249 – Emperor Philip the Arab tries and fails to outlaw homosexual prostitution.^[6]

4th century

• 342 – The first law against same-sex marriage was promulgated by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans.^[11]
• 390 – In the year 390, the Christian emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I and Arcadius declared homosexual sex to be illegal and those who were guilty of it were condemned to be burned alive in front of the public.^[12]

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.^[13]

6th century

• 529 – The Christian emperor Justinian I (527–565) made homosexuals a scapegoat for problems such as "famines, earthquakes, and pestilences."^[14]

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."^[15]
• 1140 – The Italian Monk Gratian compiles his work Concordia discordantium canonum in which he argues that sodomy is the worst of all the sexual sins because it involves using the 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.^[16]
• 1265 – Thomas Aquinas argues that sodomy is second only to murder in the ranking of sins.^[6]

14th century

• 1321 – Dante's Inferno places sodomites in the Seventh Circle.
• 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".^[17]

15th century

• 1476 – Florentine court records of 1476 show that Leonardo da Vinci and three other young men were charged with sodomy, and acquitted.^[18]

16th century

• 1532 – Holy Roman Empire makes sodomy punishable by death.^[6]

17th century

• 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.

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.^[19]

19th century

• 1859 - Kingdom of Sardinia's articles 420–425 of the penal code promulgated by Victor Emmanuel II, which punished homosexual acts between men (although not women).
• 1860 - Italy unified, resulting in sodomy laws of Sardinia being spread to the rest of the state except for the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, taking into account the "particular characteristics of those that lived in the south".
• 1887 - Zanardelli Code of Giuseppe Zanardelli removes all references to the stigmatization of homosexual people across the entire territory of Italy.
• 1889 – In Italy, homosexuality is legalised in the new Penal Code (effective 1890).^[20]

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^[21] 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.^[22][23] It was not successful.

In 2004, Tuscany became the first Italian region to ban discrimination against homosexuals^[24] 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.^[25] Since then, the region of Piedmont has enacted a similar measure.^[26]

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.^[23] 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.^[27]

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.^[28]

On 8 February 2007 the government led by Romano Prodi introduced a bill^[29] 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.^[30]

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.^[31]

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^[32] (although 9 deputies, politically near to the President of the Chamber Gianfranco Fini, have voted against).^[33] The deputy Paola Binetti, who belongs to Democratic Party, has voted against the party guidelines.^[34]

See also

• LGBT rights in Italy

References