Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence

In 1432, the Office of the Night was created specifically to police sodomy in Florence. Seventy years of denunciations, accusations and sentencings left an extraordinarily detailed record, which the author uses in this portrait, calling into question modern conceptions of sexuality and gender. At the core of this study of Renaissance Florence is the seventy year history of the Office of the Night, created in 1432 to police sexual behavior in Florence. In documenting their history, Rocke provides a vivid portrait of a culture in which sodomy was an accepted characteristic of masculine identity. As acceptance turned to repression, Rocke details the concurrent changes in public attitudes and private practices.