Welcome to the Renaissance

I am, at my core, at least academically because we don't need to discuss how my core is probably 90% pepsi max and trivia of 2010s sci fi TV series , a historian of science. And really what that means is being a historian of ideas: what people thought about themselves, each other and the world they lived in. At no point in history was there a greater shift in those things than the renaissance and scientific revolution, both starting around the 14th Century. Of course this shift affected the straights, and you'll have to excuse me while I go on a philosophy degree tangent about their shifting identity too, but it also massively affected not just queers themselves but the very notion of queerness. 1, 2   

In the 14th century the elite of Florence, Italy were starting to realise that the middle ages they were living through kind of sucked with all its plague, dysentery, constant religious wars throughout Europe and washing your clothes in urine 3. So, much like many weird men in the 21st century, they began to look back and reminisce on the Roman Empire, or at least their romanticised ideal of it4 , and began to take enormous inspiration from their art. It's clear to see, at least if you’ve read my previous chapter in the blog - no I am not above a shameless self promo - why this ancient revival made Italy, and later all of Europe, super queer, and their artworks so weirdly homoerotic. Of course, with sodomy being a crime, none of the art work could be overtly homosexual, but just look at Michelangelo's painting of Adam, and his limp wrist and tell me that he hasn't ordered a fruity cocktail at a bar only to have the pint his lesbian best friend ordered placed in front of him. 

 

The ancient Greeks and Romans who they were admiring, and especially their art they were copying, was equally as queer. For them, gender was much less a factor in relationships and as a societal organiser than it later became and continues to be, and their religious and mythological canon was full of homosexual relationships and gender-fuckery, so a sprinkle of queerness was breaking down humanity and reaching godliness. (GLBT, 2025)

This queering was also helped by the fact that the people making the most famous art of the time were massive homos. Michelangelo, who painted that gay adam we’ve already discussed on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and carved the famous statue of David5, was described in his own lifetime as a “notorious sodomite”. He had no interest in women and his work shows his queerness with its celebration of the masculine body being the peak of humidity, both factors make him walk an uneasy tightrope of homosexual desire and misogyny.  In his writing when he wonders "Whose judgment would be so barbarous as not to appreciate that the foot of a man is more noble than his boot, and his skin more noble than that of a sheep, with which he is dressed?" (Norton, 2008a)

Between 1432 and 1502 17,000 men were arrested for sodomy in Florence, one of whom was painter, mechanic, inventor and pretty much everything else ever, Leonardo da Vinci. Like Michelangelo his homosexuality snuck into his work, with his painting the Mona Lisa, potentially the most famous painting in the world that people come from all over the world to queue for hours for, was based on his male lover Gian Giocomo Caprotti. This was first suggested by Silvo Vinceti, the head of the National Committee for Cultural heritage when he noticed how similar Mona Lisa looks to other portraits that Caprotti was known to have sat for6. (Cascone, 2016)

There was also a revival of ancient knowledge beyond artwork, with the integration of Roman and Greek ideas of philosophy, mathematics and medicine. They used texts from the Arabic world, which had already been translating work from those times.  

These new ideas about science led Copernuscus to, in his landmark work On Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres published in 1543, suggest the heliocentric model, noting that the simplest way to explain the movement of bodies in the night sky is if the earth moves around the sun. The catholic church wasn't happy: Copernuicus was suggesting that rather than the earth being the centre of the universe, perfectly placed in the most important spot by God, it was, instead, one of many rocks floating around the sun. That meant humans can’t be all that important to God. Add to this Kepler discovering that the planets moved in a not-perfectly-circular motion, and you’re left with the suggestion that, if there's a God, he is not that perfect and doesn't really care about humans. Naturally this caused a bit of stir. 

With whispers that humans weren't that important to God, humans started to think that maybe God shouldn't be that important to them, so exploration of the universe, what we now understand to be science, became much more focused on human ideas and experiences. With the lack of faith in God and the church people wanted to know things for themselves rather than just trusting authority, of the church or elsewhere, and developed the scientific method. Natural philosophers, the ancestors of modern day scientists, began to do their own experiments, using their own perceptions, senses and reason to curate knowledge about the universe; knowledge that had purpose and could be used for control over the universe. You’ll have to that excuse the philosophy degree tangent but I promise it all does come back to the gays, as things often do, as a main pioneer of this scientific method was British nobleman Francis Bacon7, a massive homo. Within his own lifetime, it was written by his college that Bacon had an affection for Welsh serving-men, especially a “very effeminate-faced youth”. His mother, Lady Ann, was an absolute icon who in a letter to her other son complained about Bacon’s lover, not because he was a man - that was totally fine, but because it “violated decorum for a noble man to allow a servant to sleep in the master bedroom” (Norton, 2008b)

Many philosophers argue, for reasons I in all honestly don't really understand but don't feel a desperate need to in order to write this silly little gay history, that this shift towards human focused reasoning and perception was what created society itself, and within that identities, both cultural and individual began to form. Rather than doing paintings, people became painters, and cruitally, rather than sleeping with the same sex, people became homosexuals, fundamentally shifting how queers think about themselves, and how they are thought about until the present day. With the invention of society, identity, and culture, soon followed the invention of subcultures where people of similar identities flock together. (Ferguson, 2020)

The most obvious, or at least most prevalent in google searches, example of queer subculture at this time were the Molly Houses of London, a name coming from the reclamation of a slur for effeminate men. Despite the criminality of sodomy in the 18th century, they were places, such as clubs, taverns, inns and coffee houses where men could meet, and revel in the intimacy, friendship and chaos of queerness (McKee, 2020). There's an account of a theatrical performance at one of the houses where, camped and dragged up to the nines, a marriage ceremony was performed, which of course was followed by a trip to the marriage bed, and then the elaborate delivery of a wooden doll (Lennox, 2020). I go to gay bars now where I wouldn't be surprised if this happened; the gays really never change. The bars also had their own drinking songs, one published by James Dalton in 1728 goes:

Let the Fops of the Town upbraid

Us, for an unnatural Trade,

We value not Man nor Maid;

But among our own selves we'll be free,

It then goes on to celebrate persecuted ethnic minorities and gay historical figures of Achilles and Patroclus9 and have other references I can't even begin to understand, that I just know would have been a really funny inside joke (2000).

There were definitely lesbians around at this time too, making art and mischief. However, as always, they are granted a bit less clarity and prominence in the historical record. Firstly because, women’s lower status in society puts an extra hurdle into them getting into the historical record, and because lesbianism technically wasn’t a crime like relations between men was, so we cannot use the police reports from their arrests, a vital yet depressing source when studying male homosexuality. Instead, these women were often prosecuted for fraud for imitating men.  

In 1651, Katherine Phillips wrote one of her many poems celebrating “female romantic friendship”, and lamenting the time she lived in that prevented them. In this poem, hilariously titled To My Excellent Lucasia, On Our Friendship, she writes 

This carcass breathed, and walked, and slept,

    So that the world believed

There was a soul the motions kept;

    But they were all deceived.

For as a watch by art is wound

    To motion, such was mine:

But never had Orinda found

    A soul till she found thine;

Which now inspires, cures and supplies,

    And guides my darkened breast:

For thou art all that I can prize,

    My joy, my life, my rest.

In 1668 Mageret Cavendish published The Covenant of Pleasure, a play set in a female separatist utopia that, like Phillips, celebrated the quality of intimate relationships between women and wondered how much better they could be without men10.  (Jones, 2016)

And in 1768 Elenor Butler and Sarah Pononby met. Both upper class Irish women embarrassing their family by refusing to marry, they fell in love, and, after a few failed attempts, managed to run away with their dog Frisk. They later had a dog called Sappho. I repeat they had a dog called Sappho. They eventually settled in the North Welsh village of Llangollen, in a house called Plas Newydd. 11 They became known to locals as the Ladies of Llangollen, lived there together for 50 years until their deaths, and then were buried together in the grounds of a church nearby.

  

During their lives they got a reputation for being quite the hostesses: Charles Darwin came to visit them, as did Ada Lovelace’s dad Lord Byron who has his biography on bi.org, and your favourite lesbians favourite lesbian Anne Lister (Cadw, 2025) Yes, I promise I’ll get to Anne next chapter but until then, anyone fancy a road trip to North Wales?      

Footnotes 

1. To read more about how I’m using the term “queer”, what it means to me, and what it means within the scope of this project please my introduction to this project: On Writing Queer Histories

2. Here is a good time to remember that life, and history, doesn't make narrative sense. It’s not a neat and tidy narrative that we can weave a single string through. So, some things that happen in this chapter happened before things in the last chapter,and after things in the next chapter, because I’ve group events, ideas and people thematically rather than strictly chronologically.  

3.www.youtube.com/watchv=8P7cRTYNCdI&list=PLRlbIiRJTXx9RVkQVxIBCmGsi4swvdHZO&index=8 

4. Once on a night out I asked my friend about how often he thinks of the roman empire, he replied “whenever I see a really long road”. I will never forget the bafflement his girlfriend looked at him with. 

5. That statue of David is 5.17m, I can’t tell you why or how that fact blows my mind as much as it does, but this photo has forever changed me. 

6. As exciting as this is does need to be noted that  the Mona Lisa is also quite similar to paintings Da Vicni did of his mother and of chinese slaves, suggesting that, while Da Vinci was defo sleeping with Caprotti, the similarities are due less to inspiration and more to da Vinci not being able to draw faces.  

7. Not to be confused with Irish painter Franics Bacon, who according to my very little research was also gay 

8. Some argue, such my bestie and friend of the blog Rictor Norton, that subcultures existed before before but it’s just not recorded in history the same way: that the birth of “subculture” at this time, is actually an increase in capitalism, which created these designated spaces,  organised policing and popular press which meant the subculture was put into the historical record for the first time. Read more about it in the final section of this blog post https://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/molly2.htm  

9. Oh my God, time for more shameless self promotion! If you want to read more about Achilles and Patroclus, read my other chapter on the Ancient World

10. I’m sure Cavendish would have made some great points in the play but as someone who played high-level netball for a decade, and spends a more time than she'd like in the surprisingly toxic world of women's ultimate frisbee, the thought of an all female society genuinely gives me stress dreams

11. This is not to be confused with the national trust site 57 miles away in Anglesea, that is also called Plas Newydd - I don’t understand the Welsh either. 

Originally posted June 2025, but changed dates to keep posts in order. 

Cadw, 2025. The Ladies of LLangollen. https://cadw.gov.wales/ladies-llangollen  

   

Cascone, S. 2016. Was the “Mona Lisa” Based on Leonardo’s Male Lover. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/was-the-mona-lisa-based-on-leonardos-male-lover_n_571e3a8ce4b0d4d3f723e24b  

Ferguson, G. 2020. Historical Views of Homosexuality: European Renaissance and the Enlightenment. https://oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-1245#:~:text=ritual%20of%20marriage.-,Homosexualities%20in%20History,and%20practices%20were%20also%20present 

GLBT, 2025. Why Renaissance Art Feels Undeniably Queer. https://artsandculture.google.com/story/why-renaissance-art-feels-undeniably-queer-glbt-historical-society/QAXBrpm1ggel4w?hl=en 

Jones, H. R. 2016. The Wild and Wacky Queer Women of the 17th Century. https://thelesbianreview.com/queer-women-17th-century-europe/ 

McKee, M. 2020. 18th Century Molly Houses - London’s Gay Subculture. https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2020/06/19/18th-century-molly-houses-londons-gay-subculture/  

Lennox, L. A. 2020. Homosexuality in 18th Century England. https://www.madamegilflurt.com/2020/01/homosexuality-in-18th-century-england.html#:~:text=While%20femme%20women%20who%20took,Adventures%20of%20Tom%20Finch%2C%20Gentleman 

Norton, R. 2008a. The Passions of Michelangelo. https://rictornorton.co.uk/michela.htm 

Norton, R. 2008b. Sir Francis Bacon. https://rictornorton.co.uk/baconfra.htm 

Norton, R. 2000. But Among Our Own Selves, 1728. https://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/lechery.htm