Thread by @erik_kaars

🧵: In my continuing quest to document medieval depictions of queer people, I am looking at depictions from Dante's Inferno of the sodomites, depictions that often seem to emphasize buttocks and temptation (and feature a lot of monks!).

(BnF, Italien 74 f.47v) #MedievalTwitter

Certainly, there are depictions where the sodomites clearly writhe in pain in the fiery rain, like this one, but a lot of the depictions don't show much suffering and present the sodomites as almost tempting Dante.

(BnF, Italien 2017 f.191)

There are a remarkable amount of men with monastic tonsures in this one, suggesting people saw priests as particularly prone to sodomy.

(Morgan Library, MS M.676 fol. 25r)

Some more tonsures in this crowd too, as well as at least one bishop's (?) miter.

(Bodleian Library MS. Holkham misc. 48, p. 22)

Side-note on that last image, in which the sodomites are almost all making the same gesture: touching their heads with a finger. It MIGHT be a gesture described in some classical Roman sources that scholars have argued was a marker of a homosexual subculture.

That gesture, here described in Craig Williams' Roman Homosexuality, was scratching the head with a single finger. Could it have survived for almost a millennium as a marker of men attracted to other men? I honestly don't know.

Anyway, a puzzle but if anyone has any ideas what the sodomites are doing here, let me know!

It might just be the artists trying to not show genitalia, but it seems to me that most of these illustrations emphasize the backsides of the sodomites, and show them presenting their bottoms to both Dante and us.

(Morgan Library, MS M.676 fol. 25r)

This tiny sketch is hard to make out but it also looks like they primarily have their backsides towards Dante/us. It also suggests, in the figure closest to Dante (probably Brunetto Latini), a kind of temptation, an attempt to draw Dante to join them.

(BnF, Italien 78 f.75)

The affection & not-totally-negative portrayal by Dante of Latini (& the sodomites generally) in the Inferno has been noted by many scholars, so it's interesting to see these images show affection, even temptation.

Latini, despite being Dante's teacher, is beardless & young.

Another image of Dante being pulled by a beardless Latini (who then acquires a beard?), then of the sodomites (again, mostly tonsured) departing.

(Brit Library, Yates Thompson 36 f. 27 )

This all comes together in this image, where a beardless Latini (?) seems to be trying to draw Dante towards the beckoning crowd of sodomites, all while presenting his backside to Dante/the viewer.

(Brit Library, Additional 19587 f. 24v)