Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome: Sexuality, Identity, and Community in Early Modern Europe

by Gary Ferguson

Overview

From the tenor of contemporary discussions, it would be easy to conclude that the idea of marriage between two people of the same sex is a uniquely contemporary phenomenon. Not so, argues Gary Ferguson in Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome.

Making use of substantial fragments of trial transcripts Gary Ferguson brings the story of a same-sex marriage to life in striking detail. He unearths an incredible amount of detail about the men, their sex lives, and how others responded to this information, which allows him to explore attitudes toward marriage, sex, and gender at the time. Emphasizing the instability of marriage in premodern Europe, Ferguson argues that same-sex unions should be considered part of the institution's complex and contested history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501706554
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	07/09/2016
Series:	Signale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and Thought
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Gary Ferguson is the Douglas Huntly Gordon Distinguished Professor of French at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Queer (Re)Readings in the French Renaissance and Mirroring Belief.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Engagement
PART I. STORIES—OBSERVERS
1. A French Writer Visits: Montaigne's Travel Journal and a Thrice-Told Tale
2. "Our Marriages"? Male to Male / Like Husband and Wife
3. Marriage— Rites, Analogues, Meanings
4. Other Witnesses, Other Stories
PART II. STORIES—ACTORS
5. Final Hours: Wills and Execution
6. Voices on Trial: Beginning with Battista the Boatman
7. Saint John at the Latin Gate: Marco Pinto
8. Marriage as Alibi, as Euphemism, as Recruitment
9. Marriage and Community
PART III. HISTORIES
10. Looking Forward / Looking Back: The History of Sexuality
11. Ghost Stories: Queer History

What People are Saying About This

Guido Ruggiero

A microhistory with a bite, this fascinating and richly detailed study of a literally queer 'marriage' in early modern Rome involving a group of men who ran afoul of the papacy and local authorities challenges virtually all the current givens about premodern male/male sex and especially what has become a Foucauldian orthodoxy. Melding a close reading of archival documents and a wide-ranging reading of literary accounts, it offers a stimulating rethinking of marriage, sexual identity, sexual subcultures, and an ideal of mutual pleasure in sex—and not just in the premodern period, for this book engages intelligently and provocatively with modern debates on these subjects as well.

Melissa E. Sanchez

Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome is a captivating and important book. Following the myriad implications and consequences of a same-sex marriage ceremony performed in late-sixteenth-century Rome, Gary Ferguson brings together religious, political, and economic history to bear on our understanding of the organization of past erotic relations. Ferguson's nuanced history of marriage, gender, and the history of sexuality will be essential reading for scholars from a range of fields.

Editorial Reviews

"Ferguson's findings about a group of foreign immigrants appropriating the social and religious ritual of marriage within their own self-defined community open up a new window on homosexual activity in Renaissance Rome. The author has deftly uncovered a clandestine subculture that departed from traditional gender norms, sexual stereotypes, and marriage practices, making an important contribution to the history of marriage and sexuality."

Europe: Early Modern and Modern

Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome will be of interest to historically inclined scholars from all disciplines, but will especially delight historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and art historians.... The case of the men at the church of Saint John at the Latin Gate demands attention, and should not be thought of as an exceptional event but as a new window into the diverse forms of historical sexuality and as a methodological example of the way to excavate these latent pasts.

H-Histsex

Ferguson's findings about a group of foreign immigrants appropriating the social and religious ritual of marriage within their own self-defined community open up a new window on homosexual activity in Renaissance Rome. The author has deftly uncovered a clandestine subculture that departed from traditional gender norms, sexual stereotypes, and marriage practices, making an important contribution to the history of marriage and sexuality.

American Historical Review

This is a short book, but it punches above its weight. Although the book will be of most interest to historians of sexuality and other early modern historians, I would not hesitate to give it to students as an excellent model of how to read historical documents as texts while also placing them within several different relevant contexts and opening up productive ambiguities.

Journal of the History of Sexuality

An original and deeply thoughtful study.... Ferguson's sensitive discussion of the men's testimonies, fragmentary though they are, challenges 'some engrained historiographical notions' about same-sex erotic relationships in early modern Europe.... Ferguson's extraordinary, compassionate and poignant book allows these events to speak to us urgently about sexuality past and the present.

Gender & History

[The book is a] splendid microhistorical investigation, a piece of archival detective work that challenges prevailing views about sexual identity in early modern Europe.... It is compelling reading that should make scholars, students, and activists think again about the history of sexuality.

H-Net Reviews/H-Histsex

In its analysis of texts, narrative and legal, Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome is truly exemplary.

Journal of Modern History

Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome will be of interest to historically inclined scholars from all disciplines, but will especially delight historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and art historians.... The case of the men at the church of Saint John at the Latin Gate demands attention, and should not be thought of as an exceptional event but as a new window into the diverse forms of historical sexuality and as a methodological example of the way to excavate these latent pasts.

-- "H-Histsex"

[The book is a] splendid microhistorical investigation, a piece of archival detective work that challenges prevailing views about sexual identity in early modern Europe.... It is compelling reading that should make scholars, students, and activists think again about the history of sexuality.

-- "H-Net Reviews/H-Histsex"

An original and deeply thoughtful study.... Ferguson's sensitive discussion of the men's testimonies, fragmentary though they are, challenges 'some engrained historiographical notions' about same-sex erotic relationships in early modern Europe.... Ferguson's extraordinary, compassionate and poignant book allows these events to speak to us urgently about sexuality past and the present.

-- "Gender & History"

Ferguson's findings about a group of foreign immigrants appropriating the social and religious ritual of marriage within their own self-defined community open up a new window on homosexual activity in Renaissance Rome. The author has deftly uncovered a clandestine subculture that departed from traditional gender norms, sexual stereotypes, and marriage practices, making an important contribution to the history of marriage and sexuality.

-- "American Historical Review"

In its analysis of texts, narrative and legal, Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome is truly exemplary.

-- "Journal of Modern History"

This is a short book, but it punches above its weight. Although the book will be of most interest to historians of sexuality and other early modern historians, I would not hesitate to give it to students as an excellent model of how to read historical documents as texts while also placing them within several different relevant contexts and opening up productive ambiguities.

-- "Journal of the History of Sexuality"

From the Publisher

"Ferguson's findings about a group of foreign immigrants appropriating the social and religious ritual of marriage within their own self-defined community open up a new window on homosexual activity in Renaissance Rome. The author has deftly uncovered a clandestine subculture that departed from traditional gender norms, sexual stereotypes, and marriage practices, making an important contribution to the history of marriage and sexuality."

Europe: Early Modern and Modern

"A microhistory with a bite, this fascinating and richly detailed study of a literally queer 'marriage' in early modern Rome involving a group of men who ran afoul of the papacy and local authorities challenges virtually all the current givens about premodern male/male sex and especially what has become a Foucauldian orthodoxy. Melding a close reading of archival documents and a wide-ranging reading of literary accounts, it offers a stimulating rethinking of marriage, sexual identity, sexual subcultures, and an ideal of mutual pleasure in sex—and not just in the premodern period, for this book engages intelligently and provocatively with modern debates on these subjects as well."

Guido Ruggiero

"Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome is a captivating and important book. Following the myriad implications and consequences of a same-sex marriage ceremony performed in late-sixteenth-century Rome, Gary Ferguson brings together religious, political, and economic history to bear on our understanding of the organization of past erotic relations. Ferguson's nuanced history of marriage, gender, and the history of sexuality will be essential reading for scholars from a range of fields."

Melissa E. Sanchez