Introduction to Leonardo da Vinci’s Life
In 1476, a young Leonardo da Vinci was examined by the moral authorities in Florence. Someone had anonymously accused him of acting with a 17-year-old sex worker. However, the indictment was dropped due to a lack of evidence.
Da Vinci’s Relationship with Salai
The German literary historian Dino Hecker says that there are contemporary sources that prove Leonardo had relationships with men, especially with an apprentice 28 years younger than him, called Gian Giacomo Caprotti, also known as Salai ("Little Devil"). They lived together for many years. A few years ago, Italian art historians believed that they had found proof that the world-famous Mona Lisa did not represent Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a Florentine merchant, but Caprotti. He modeled several times for Da Vinci, and researchers say that the similarity is unmistakable.
The Biblical City of Sodom as a Cave of Injustice
"If a majority defines what is normal and abnormal and explains a binary gender model as a norm, this creates a difficult environment for minorities that feel different," says Heiker. In his book, he lists some of the draconian punishments that have been added to queer, non-binary, or transgender people in the past. They were accused of having spoiled themselves with an "unnatural" lifestyle at the time and were sometimes put in chains, stoned, neutered, or even burned.
Loves in Antiquity
On the other hand, there were also companies in which many forms of queerness were generally accepted. For example, during ancient times, it was common for men to have a male lover in addition to women. The Roman Emperor Hadrian was so warmly broken by the death of his beloved Antinous that he posthumously explained him as God and built numerous statues and worship places to honor the beautiful youth.
A "Crime Against Nature"
The spread of Christianity brought an end to the fortune of same-sex love. The bishop and Benedictine monk Petrus Damiani was one of the most influential clergymen of the 11th century. He scolded for fornication, which he also spread in monasteries: "The shy cancer of the sodomy," he wrote, "actually spreads through the clergyman or more like a wild animal, is like a wild animal with such a shameless devotion through the herd of Christ." Sodomy was convinced that the result of devilish whisper was convinced.
LGBTQ+ Figures Throughout History
In later centuries and in modern times, various LGBTQ+ figures achieved fame. Hecker’s book lists the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the Irish writer and playwriter Oscar Wilde, the US writer James Baldwin, and so on. They only tried to find happiness in their own way.
The Diaries of Anne Lister
The English landowner Anne Lister left a number of diaries that were included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2011. "In these 26 volumes, she writes in detail about lesbian sex and her relationship with women," explains Hecker. Lister developed a secret code, so that no uninitiated person could read their confessions that were only deciphered in 1930.
The Third Gender
From the Mahu to Tahiti to the Muxen of the Zapotec people in Mexico, the Hijras in South Asia, and the Lhamanas of the Zuni culture in North America: For thousands of years, people have had the feeling of belonging to the third sex and neither as men nor as women. "There was much more diversity than the close, binary gender model thinking today," says Hecker. "For example, the Zuni do not assume that gender is innate, but they see it as a social construct."
Conclusion
Queer people, especially in Germany, had to fight for freedoms that former generations could only dream of. The same-sex marriage has been legalized, and sexual discrimination is now a crime. On the other hand, these successes must also be continuously protected, especially in view of the attempts to turn the clock back.
