Customer Reviews

Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence (Studies in the History of Sexuality)

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I won't hide my praise; this book is a masterpiece in the study of male-male sexuality in the Renaissance. Finally, due to some historically fortuitous and unfortunately rare records, some one has provided firm demographic evidence on the phenomenon in one major city. These demographics settle a number of thorny questions that have plagued the field since its inception. Over two-thirds the male population of Renaissance Florence was involved in pederasty. We are not dealing with a small but relatively free homosexual minority; instead, the average Florentine Renaissance male, regardless of sexual orientation, engaged in some form of sex with males. This book is essential not only to those interested in the Renaissance but also to all interested in ancient (Western) history. Those interested in ancient Greece and Rome in particular will be fascinated to learn that Greek practices are still very much alive in Renaissance Italy, over two-thousand years later. The book casts serious doubt on the notion that a small, aritocratic minority practiced pederasty in Classical Antiquity. Rocke firmly establishes that male pederastic sex and relationships in Renaissance Florence were embedded in the broader contexts of male culture and sociality, class, retribution, and politics. His book is an additional verification of the anthropological theory that most pre-industrial societies accepted male pederasty as a valid expression of a man's sexual desires, though only ancient Greece and Rome seem to have so publicly lauded the practice in their art, literature, and philosophy.

Michael Rocke's tome on male culture and sexuality in Renaissance Florence is a tremendous work that provides exceptional insight into male sexuality. After reading this, only the most obdurate student of gay life and history could fail to attain a more significant understanding of the present-day forces that seek to quash gays and their efforts for equality under the law. Rocke's careful research of 15th- and 16th-century documents unequivocably shows that if not most, quite nearly a mjority of Florentine males at the time had sex at least once with another male. The significance of such a finding should not be missed.

Present day gays roll their eyes whenever they encounter the supposition that a person can "be made gay" or "converted" to being gay because of the firm belief that one's sexuality is predominantly innate. But after reading Rocke's book, one can't help but see how males that today would undoubtedly be identified as heterosexual had freely enjoyed sex with other males. The significance of this, however, should not be interpreted to mean that one's sexuality is entirely a choice. It does, however, provide an understanding of why some homophobes fear gays.

The Dominican cleric Savonarola's rhetoric in the war he waged against sodomy in Florence provides a historical background as well for understanding the position of today's Religious Right and its stance against gays. Savonarola figures heavily in Rocke's book and the author provides wonderful detail on the political machinations of the time, a politic that essentially recognized the need to publicly take a stand against sodomy, but in practicality often lacked the nerve to do what was necessary to rid the city of "this vice."

Anyone interested in the history surrounding gays and homosexuality is strongly urged to add this title to their list.

This is a review of the Kindle version only, and so, it is a review of the implementation on Kindle and not a review of the content. Once i've completed reading the book i will add to this review.

I have only two problems with the Kindle implementation of this book: the font face is fixed to a serif type, and, the footnotes are not "live". My concern with a fixed serif font is that for people with reading disabilities, sans-serif fonts are more easily read and for people without reading difficulties sans-serif fonts will work as well as serif fonts. On well formatted Kindle books you can choose the desired font along with other display attributes that are missing in this Kindle book. By "live" i mean that one can click on footnotes to be taken to a separate page where you can read the footnotes. In this book the footnotes are not live, so you will have to search the book to locate the footnotes, add a bookmark, and move between your current reading location and your footnote bookmark. And even with that approach you must move the bookmark over time as the page containing your "current" footnote will change. I think this is an important failure in a complex book like this with so many footnotes in that it reduces the reading flow considerably to have to go through the process i outlined in order to read each footnote. The alternative is to skip the footnotes and read them later, thus losing the context of the footnote - won't really work.

I think it is reasonable to expect the above features in a Kindle book. Compared to producing a book on the printed page, the above features require very little time and provide considerable reading pleasure.