A friend of mine told me this the other day and I had never heard it before. Apparently it’s a common fact. Was he? What proof is there?
In 1476, when he was 24, he was charged with homosexual conduct (a crime at the time). An anonymous person accused him and three other men of availing themselves of the services of a young male prostitute. The charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.
He also painted a lot of nude male bodies and the like. I’ve seen a few and the ones I’ve seen aren’t exactly erotic. They look like biology textbook diagrams. The famous four-armed four-legged wild-haired male figure I’m sure you’ve seen is one of these.
He didn’t marry nor have any relationships with women that we know of. It’s also claimed that he mentored several young men during his life, but I haven’t seen much evidence. Can’t really claim I’ve looked very hard.
That’s the evidence as far as I know. Now, if you wish to follow me into crackpot territory, take a gander at Freud’s book Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood, where our favourite psychiatrist tries to explain da Vinci’s genius (and homosexuality) with a neglecting father and doting mother. Standard Freud stuff, really, and not evidence either way.
da Vinci is often included in lists of “Great Gay Men” and the like, but his homosexuality is far from proven.
The only way, really, to ask the question is this: “If LdV were alive today, would he call himself a homosexual?”
It’s my understanding that the concept of a person who identifies himself as a homosexual is a pretty modern concept. Before modern times, homosexuality was seen strictly as a form of deviant behavior, and not an orientation per se. For further muddying, at various times and places in human history, homosexual acts have inspired varying degrees of acceptance or disapproval. Were more of the ancient Greeks homosexual than, say, modern Hasidic Jews? Undoubtedly not, but the Hellenic culture was less censorious of homosexual acts.
The distinction between the black and white areas of gay and straight are not separated by a clean line; that spectrum is largely gray. So any such label is a self applied one.
Leonardo never married and had a young ‘assistant companion’ called Salai who seemed do little work and indulge in behaviour that usually would have ended in redundancy or a good beating. But in Leonardo’s own diaries we are told that he always forgave him. All Salai seem to having going for him is that he made a good model.
When Leonardo died he left Salai a significant portion of his wealth.
Draw your own conclusions.
The sexual orientation of historical figures is always difficult to ascertain. You have to keep in mind that there are at least two layers of deliberate obfuscation to penetrate.
First, if the subject is indeed homosexual, they’re in all probability doing their best to hide that fact. If homosexuality is criminal in their culture, it’s in their best interest to leave as little evidence as possible which could convict them. Which doesn’t end up leaving much for future historians.
Second, the future historians of the past may not have held homosexuality in great regard. When a researcher from a past period came across evidence that indicated that their subject was homosexual, they often excluded it from their publications or even destroyed it.
In addition to that, keep in mind that human sexuality, as has been pointed out many times, is not binary; people are arrayed along a continuum of sexualities, ranging from 100% straight to 100% gay, with very few people at the extremes. Instead of asking, “was so-and-so gay” we might be better off to ask where they fall on the Kinsey scale. Of course, even determining one’s own position on the Kinsey scale can be challenging, which highlights the problem of nailing down the sexual orientation of people who’ve been dead for centuries. Heck, there’s even still debate about Walt Whitman, and he died in 1919.
Fortunately, there’s been considerable interest in gay and lesbian history recently. There are several volumes of interest out there, but if you’re interested I’d recommend starting with the excellent overview provided by Richard Norton’s web site dedicated to the subject. He’s also compiled an excellent page of links to websites concerning gay and lesbian history.
It’s a fascinating field of study. I hope you pursue your interest in it.
Well, then. There’s your answer.
Not to ding the OP, but my response upon reading the thread title was “Who cares?” It’s not like confirmation/refudation of Leonardo’s sexual orientation is going to affect his works, is it?
It was alleged in Dan Brown’s Davinci Code and I was curious if it was true. If this thread hadn’t been started, I would have eventually asked. It doesn’t change the quality of his work.
No, it wouldn’t affect his works, or even people’s opinions of them…well I should hope not anyhow, but I think some folks care…at least judging by a poster I once saw during Gay Pride listing famous homosexuals through history. Its a prestige thing.
I managed to get through two years of junior high and four of high school in the US without ever hearing any mention of homosexuality except for derogatory epithets from my peers.
Once I got to college and found out that a few of the people whose works we’d studied were gay, I was reassured about my ability to create things of beauty and contribute to society. A massively negative one-sided portrayal of homosexuals exists in society at the moment, and acknowledging the sexuality of gay and lesbian geniuses from history is a small step towards rectifying that.
I have a nephew who’s gay, and who is struggling towards an understanding of himself in that context. It’s a great thing to be able to point him towards the work of Walt Whitman and Michaelangelo, and tell him that he can aspire to contribute what they did. To help him to understand that in no way does his sexuality limit his potential.
There’s also the matter of historical integrity. The personal lives of artists, for example, are studied in the context of art history classes. Their lives inevitably affect their art. To exclude the alternative sexuality of some artists from discussion, when their loves and persecution must have impacted their aesthetic, is to have an incomplete appreciation of their influences. Especially seeing as discussions of heterosexual artists’ love lives and marriages abound.
Ah, but you know what it was like to be in your 20s back in the '70s . . .
We saw it on a gay pride poster… which had the title No Queers. No Flight! It just seemed because he was dead, they could call him what they wanted.
Then I had to sit through a movie which was apparently all about lesbians and footage of them throughout the history of film.
But just because its a women softball team does not make them all lesbians! And a woman in a porn magazine does not a lesbian make! It seemed that they were calling a LOT of dead people gay, when there was no evidence to support it.
Dan Brown alledges a lot of things in his book, using the amazing schoolground technique of “all historians know it, but the general public doesn’t”. There are many opinions, but very little facts, and the idea that “all historians” know it is clearly facetious.
The lack of evidence continues today.
If a guy, once arrested for homosexuality, in his journal writes explicitly that he is disgusted by women’s sex organs [and] He argues that the penis, by contrast, is so fine that it is practically a crime against nature to hide it … would you call him gay? gay-ish? has issues? It is open to interpretation certainly, but with the relationship to the pretyy male ward thrown in … I submit the weight of the evidence suggests a homosexual orientation – not that there is anything wrong with that.
A good recent article on what we (think we) know – & don’t know about him.
http://www.artnewsonline.com/currentarticle.cfm?art_id=1240
Well yeah. That’s why I was curious. I don’t really care, it doesn’t change my opinion of his work, but having read it in that particular book, I was suddenly curious if it were true…
[QUOTE=rjung]
"Who cares?"QUOTE]
I think it matters a great deal. I find it curious that some of the greatest minds in every civilization have been gay, Socrates, Da Vinci, and Nietzsche for starters. Sexuality permeates human behavior way more than most people think, and I wonder if there is something about being gay that forces some people to become great artists and philosophers (or vice versa?).
Would Nietzsche have written such important works if he did not live in such a conservative society that he was forced to repress his sexuality, and find other means of expression? I find it unlikely that he would have written about the ultra-masculine Ubermensch hero coming to save him if he was not such a terribly lonely old man. Although I have not studied da vinci, I do know that when Friedrich saw Da vinci’s “Self Portrait”, he proclaimed, “That’s him! That’s exactly what I imagined he looked like!”; speaking of his Zarathrustra character.
The weight of the evidence may be there, jjimmy, but it may still be wrong. I’m thirty-two, never married, don’t think female sexual organs are particularly attractive, and I’m straight. Interpret all you like, but until firmer evidence comes to light, the conclusion is still a rampant speculation based implicitly on what evidence you think a heterosexual man should have left behind. Futile Gesture also suggests that we draw our own conclusions, and my conclusion is: who really knows for sure, and who cares?
For what it’s worth, MrVisible, I agree that for the sake of honest education we should be speaking openly about artwork—any creation, really—brought into the world by homosexual artists. Or black artists, or disabled ones. That is the honest thing to do, and I’m sure it would greatly enhance the lives of homosexuals, blacks, and disabled people to realize that yes, they can make a contribution. I’d just prefer that when we’re talking about a historical figure for which there is suggestive but inconclusive evidence, we say, “Well, he coulda been. Or maybe not. Who can say, really.”
I’ve seen a comparison made between the face of the Mona Lisa and Leonardo’s own face. I believe I read it in Smithsonian. If I remember it correctly, X-rays show that the pencil “cartoon” underneath the paint layer began as a self-portrait. Was Leonardo trying to paint what he’d have looked like as a woman? Was he, in fact, transgendered and not homosexual? Would that not still fit the facts as we know them?
Again, who knows? It’s an interesting theory—but I think that before we co-opt a historical figure for own purposes (cf. Jesus was black), we start with the facts.
That’s why I have to call for a cite on “Socrates was gay,” Brandus. As far as I know, the only evidence we have of the very existence of Socrates is in the writings of his student, Plato. Unless Plato boinked him himself—and told the truth about it—and we can prove it’s the truth—then how do you know? Did Plato write “by the way, Socrates is gay, ask Aeschylus” in something and I just missed it? 
I thought this was worth reiterating. Well put, Fish. Leo may or may not have been gay, but there are agendas in play here too. (Not among our posters, I mean, but certainly among some groups.)
Well, it’s not like he was gonna argue with them about it. 
You’re correct on both counts. But did they just assert these people were gay, or are they actually gay? Are there lesbian softball teams? (If so, I think a lot of guys have just had a dream come true.) Some dead people actually were gay, you know. 
No doubt that’s true, although you can’t say for sure any of the three were actually gay. People’s experiences and personalities affect their works. Then again, lots of brilliant people were straight, so let’s hold off on making the gay>genius correlation.
It seems to me that there is little or no evidence that Da Vinci was straight.
That’s true, but I don’t think it’s so wrong to assume someone’s straight, given that the vast majority of people are. At least, it’s okay if you’re discussing someone who died hundreds of years ago, it’s kind of impolite normally.
Evidence is a funny thing, you know? Shakespeare married young and had three kids and people say he was gay.