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THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT
OR THE TASTE FOR SODOMY IN RENAISSANCE
ITALY
LAURA GIANNETTI RUGGIERO
In medieval and Renaissance Italian literary texts, the immoderate desire
for food {la gola)
for
two
male-male
sins,
is
often associated and sometimes equated with the desire
sex, labelled
gluttony and lust
"sodomy"
Saint Augustine in his Confessions,
same discussion
carnal pleasures for
where they appear one
him
include both
lust, especially
condemnation of both the
sin
of Florence {Purg. 23:97-1
lust in various
1
Pulci,
and
—supports
—during
this
dared to show their breasts on the
forms
—
{novelle), in the
as the
—
motive for comic play
the Decameron,
mock-heroic
finally in the sixteenth-century
in
some
1
With
poem Morgante by
of recipes and advice for good
the term "sodomy" in this context
intercourse.
The term
periods to categorize
between women,
is
I
are
fifteenth-
Luigi
burlesque poetry of Francesco
Berni and his followers, the Accademia dei Vignaiuoli. In his
Voluptate, a collection
his
view in the
1).
represented in Renaissance culture: in
century short stories
sodomy, and immod-
of gluttony, attributed to Forese Donati, and
women who
of licentious Florentine
Gluttony and
after the other in
and drink. Even the pilgrim Dante
encounter with his friend Forese in Purgatory
streets
In medieval times the
Augustine, Confessions, book X, xxx-xxxi). Indeed,
(S.
erate desire for food
1
Church and unequivocally condemned by
writings of the Fathers of the
the
at the time.
and/or sodomy, were closely intertwined in the
refer to
De
Honesta
living, written in the
male-male sex primarily
as anal
an umbrella that was used in Medieval and Renaissance
all
men and
men and women and/or
forms of homoerotic behaviour between
as well as anal
and
oral sex
between
sexual intercourse with animals. In sixteenth-century Italy to engage in male-
male sodomy was not an exclusive
tions with
women and was
practice; often
it
did not preclude sexual
related to age (old-young)
and
rela-
a hierarchical (active-
The Boundaries of Eros, chap. VI, for fourand fifteenth-century prosecution of sodomy in Venice and the chapter
passive) structure. See Ruggiero,
teenth-
"Marriage, Love, Sex and Renaissance Civic Morality" for the age/hierarchical
structure. See also Giannetti
Michel Rocke,
Culture."
and Ruggiero, "Introduction." For Florence see
the essay "Gender and Sexual
Forbidden Friendships and
A valuable analysis of the homoerotic sexual environment in sixteenth-
century Italy and Siena
Quaderni
is
in Ian Frederick
d'italianistica,
Moulton, "Introduction."
Volume XXVII, No.
1,
2006, 31
—
Laura Giannetti Ruggiero
second half of fifteenth-century, the humanist Bartolomeo Sacchi known as
Platina expresses what might be labelled a more balanced vision where moderation
and wisdom take part
enjoyment of food and sex
book
I).
ple of
Right Pleasure
for
all
merely a
tie
of gluttony and
literary topos: first,
Roman
worlds. 2
tellingly prohibit innkeepers
the unspeakable sin of
A century later,
did not disappear nor was
lust
it
was acknowledged by the Florentine com-
it
1322 that
statutes of
commit
159). 3
the
Health,
the literary play and humanistic searching for a classical
men and
culinary delights because they could attract
to
flesh, in
and Good
attention to the idealistic princi-
moderation derived from the Greek and
balance, the sinful
munal
On
much
(Platina,
In this work, Platina paid
Still,
of the
in the "honest pleasure"
from serving up
boys and incite them
sodomy (Rocke, Forbidden
Friendships,
sermons, Bernardino da Siena similarly con-
in his
demned good food and wine as fomenters of carnal lust and especially of
sodomy. During Cosimo the Elder's regime Florentine Archbishop
Antonino
Pierozzi
warned against
wake of several
Antoninus)
St
(later
sloth, excess
—
in
food and drink
his
manual
confessor's
as causes
of sodomy. 4 In the
preachers' admonitions, Florentine authorities at the
end of
the fifteenth-century began to regulate strictly the hours of operation for
inns and taverns in order to avoid their
becoming
sodomites (Rocke, Forbidden Friendships, 159).
a widely shared vision at the time that
pleasures of sex
—
particularly
sodomy
During the sixteenth-century,
a
meeting place for
There seems
to have
been
saw the pleasures of eating and the
—
as closely
and dangerously
related.
in the popular imagination of the vari-
ous Lands of Cockcaigne, the enjoyment of capons, partridges and roasted
hand with the enjoyment of sex. 5 In Carnivalesque celebrations, where often the greasy pole (the tree of Cockaigne) was at the
center stage, the sausage was the symbol of sexual and gustatory pleasure. 6
meats went hand
in
^See Montanari, La fame e l'abbondanza, for the distinction between the
ideal
of moderation in food and the Celtic-Germanic ideal
the Franks
•^See also p.
—of
excess, (30-32).
305,
n.
ed meats, ravioli,
64
for the
fish,
meat
list
of such foods:
in aspic,
—
later
"tortelli, liverwort, spleen, roast-
chicken or any kind of
birth..."
4 "imperochè come dice Idio per Ezechiele propheta, da ben mangiare
fu causata la ribalderia de
-'Albala,
Sodoma" Antonino
Roman
assumed by
e
ben bere
di Firenze, Opera, fol. 65.
Eating Right in the Renaissance, 181. This seminal book has been crucial
in the writing
of
this article.
"Starting with the painting "Land of Cockaigne" by Pieter Bruegel, the sausage
was one of the most represented sexual symbols
sixteenth to the eighteenth-century.
— 32 —
in
European paintings from the
—
The Forbidden Fruit
In Pulci's Morgante the minor-giant Margutte extolled his three vices
gluttony,
sodomy and
the play of dice
—
—
parody of cardinal
as a perverse
comedies
virtues^ In Italian Renaissance
set in
times of recurrent famines
and wars - the theme of gluttony joined up with that of hunger and
vation. If servants died of
parasites
hunger
in Ruzante's
star-
comedies, in other texts the
were always on the lookout for sumptuous dinners and sodomit-
ical pleasures.
In comedies, dialogues and especially poetry produced in fifteenth
and
sixteenth-century Italy the language started to register the idea that glut-
tony and sodomy were closely related to each other. The usage of the words
ghiotto
is
and ghiottone
present in works
as a
—
to
noun and
as
quote a few
an adjective to indicate a sodomite
—by Lorenzo
de' Medici,
Lorenzo
di
Anton Francesco Grazzini, Francesco Maria
Molza, Francesco Berni and others. 8 To focus on comedy, the word ghiotFilippo Strozzi, Pietro Aretino,
tone (glutton) or simply ghiotto (gluttonous)
cally to
male characters portrayed
associated with pedants, parasites
esting
is
the use Pietro Aretino
Marescalco.
ish use
of Latin,
is
to refer stereotypi-
sodomites; a stereotype also often
as
and young
made of
There the pedant, with
was used
servants. 9 Particularly inter-
who makes
— probably
grande bouffe," and Palma,
la
who
has a
diffi-
continuous fun of him. The lan-
guage used by the pedant to insult the young page
'See Garrido, "Le thème de
//
ignorance and fool-
portrayed as the stereotypical sodomite
cult relationship with a page
comedy
these terms in his
his typical learned
one-time
his
"Of
Courtesans,
Knights," 40.
o
Jean Toscan shows with several examples
graph 237 "Le gourmand"
under the voice
"Porcellio
who
ghiotto.
1:
how widespread
the usage was. See para-
410-412, and quotations
romano" (presumably Nicolò
Porcellio,
Glossary
listed in the
Matteo Bandello (1485-1561) narrates
a
tale
on
humanist, historian and poet
lived in the fifteenth-century at the court of Francesco Sforza in Milan)
using food metaphors to talk about Porcellio's notorious passions of the
According to Bandello, Porcellio loved
cibo" and, at the
natural thing:
trastullarmi
"
con
moment
Oh,
i
of his
"la
final confession, justified his vice as the
oh, padre reverendo, voi
fanciulli a
me
è
flesh.
carne del capretto molto più che altro
non mi
più naturale che non è
most
sapeste interrogare.
il
mangiar
e
il
ber a
Il
1'
mi domandavate se io peccava contro natura. Andate, andate,
non sapete che cosa sia un buon boccone." (emphasis mine)
Bandello, Novelle, 149 and 155.
uomo,
e voi
messere, che voi
-Tor instance, see the usage of this word and
zo by the Venetian writer Lodovico Dolce:
II. 3, p.
234
"ghiottarella"; IV.
1, p.
266
:
its
variations in the
II. 1
p.
226 "Ah
"Ghiotto."
— 33 —
comedy
II
ragaz-
ghiotto, ribaldello";
—
Laura Giannetti Ruggiero
sexual partner
—
word
includes the
ghiotticulo (or glutton-ass).
The
10
and
ghiotto
word
last
is
revealing variation of
its
used frequently in the com-
an insult to indicate someone eager to be sodomized. The more gen-
edy
as
eral
term ghiotto recurs in
dialogues and
in
homoerotic associations
its
in other texts
such
contemporary burlesque poetry. The term ghiotto
appears at times in Florentine criminal records and
in the depositions given
by informers to the
tracy dedicated to the suppression of
is
as
also
common
especially
magis-
Ufficiali di Notte, the
sodomy; the primary word used to
refer to the young boys who prostituted themselves was ghiotti along with
some other derogatory feminine names (Rocke, Forbidden Friendships, 107
and 288 n. 100). The extensive usage of the terms ghiotto and ghiottone m
literary texts, in the judiciary system and in the everyday world takes part
in
and contributes
practices as an
view homoerotic
to a set of cultural assumptions that
immoderate
ate desire for food. Jean
desire in
Toscan
many ways equated
more
offers a
to the
immoder-
precise genealogy for this
usage of the word:
If these particular erotic practices or the part
practices take place
ghiottone those
my
The
who
may
be called bocconi,
it
is
of the body where such
normal
to call ghiotto or
seek them. (Toscan, Le Carnaval du langage,
1:
411;
translation).
negative conceptual link between gluttony and lust was not lim-
ited to law, literature,
and everyday language;
it
also
found support
medical-dietetic genre that captured widespread interest
—although
out
own
—
teenth-century on. Written mainly by physicians
poets and artists were also interested in laying
in the
from the mid-fifphilosophers,
their
particular view
of the ideal dietary regime and nutritional choices
these works were
above
prescriptive
all
Even though
adopted
it
is
and
their general theoretical
clear that
most of
in everyday practice,
literature
of the Renaissance
should be regarded
Among
the
as
it is
—
framework was Galenic.
this prescriptive literature
important to recognize that the dietary
like
prescriptive literature
an embodiment of a range of cultural
dominant
dietetic theories
who
ate
it
its
in
general
ideals.
11
of the early Renaissance, the
concept of transference was especially important:
quality of an animal or of
was not
it
held that a peculiar
organs would be transferred to the person
or them. For instance,
if
one
ate a wolf's liver, associated with
See Five Comedies from the Italian Renaissance. 166, n. 139
For a discussion on food in literary texts of the Renaissance and the medicaldietetic literature, see Palma,
"Of Courtesans,
— 34 —
Knights."
The Forbidden Fruit
would become courageous;
courage, one
would recover
his lost virility
if
one
one
ate bull's testicles,
Eating Right, 79-80 and 169).
(Albala,
According to Platina, the consumption of pork, the meat of an omnivo-
would
rous and greedy animal,
lead to the transformation of one into a rav-
enous ghiottone unable to distinguish between good and bad food. 12 Other
authors
—
recommended not
eating goat
—
a "notoriously" lascivious animal
so as to maintain chastity (Albala, Eating Right, 80
— based on
texts,
however
to be
consumed
became
for help
with Venus's work;
a very successful genre in
168). For instance,
all
and 149-50). Other
—suggested which food ought
same theory
the
itself.
this "aphrodisiac" literature
146-50 and
(Albala, Eating Right,
foods that were seen as
warming
the
body and the
blood, from asparagus to artichokes, from cloves to pigeons and partridges,
as well as all salty
147-8).
foods were considered aphrodisiacs (Albala, Eating Right,
Sometimes physicians
coming from
far
regions with
also associated rare
illicit
and "often
sex
and expensive foods
explicitly
connected per-
The
verse tastes in food with sexual license." (Albala, Eating Right, 150).
transference theory
century, but
ic
meanings
Social
it
would
remained
lose force
common
to different types
to attribute somatic effects
and symbol-
of foods.
symbolism was important
writers, certain foods
by the second half of the sixteenth
as well: in the eyes
were appropriate only for certain
of these dietetic
classes.
Peasants
should eat rustic grains and preserved meat, while birds, fresh meats,
or seafood were suitable only for gentlemen and
courtiers.
fruit
As has been
widely discussed, food was a significant factor in social evaluation and
was
especially true in Italy during the Renaissance
—with
this
a strong social
hierarchy and great differences between urban and rural cultures (Grieco,
"Food and
desire
Social Classes").
by the upper
and behaviour and
ners
Such distinctions were
classes to distinguish
closely related to the
themselves through specific
to a hierarchical vision of the
man-
world that saw
it
as
one "great chain of being" that progressed upwards from the humblest of
things to the
food, plants
most important. According to this conception as applied to
ordered
a place on a hierarchical ladder
—
and animals occupy
according to the four elements
—
on the top mythological animals
(such as the phoenix), and at its base the
that has
living in the highest element, fire
^Albala, Eating Right, 168. In the original Latin: "Hoc animal edacissimum
et
ob hanc rem sanguine multum ac calore abundat. Ulignosa
tur libenter, incolit ad
reprimendum calorem.
[...]
pulmentaria ex porco nuper caeso, ut adeps caro
etsi
gustum
Platina,
On
titillât,
perniciosa
Right Pleasure,
tamen omnino
Book
ii,
162.
— 35 —
est,
loca, ubi volute-
Colliguntur item multa ad
suilla tarn recens
est ac
mali succi, ut
quam
ait
salita;
Celsus."
Laura Giannetti Ruggiero
humblest plants that grow directly
in the soil (such as
(Grieco, "Food and Social Classes," 307-12).
thought to connect
all
being products of the
The
onions and
garlic)
great chain of being
was
God's creation in one design. Roots and legumes,
bottom of
ones that peasants at the
God and
were the farthest from
soil,
thus the only
society could eat. Because fruit trees
were closer to the sky with their branches, and so distanced themselves
from the
the lowest of the four elements, fruit could be a food worthy
soil,
An
of nobles. 13
interesting literary transposition of these assumptions can
be read in a fifteenth-century short story
grow
to resist the succulent peaches that
Zuco
peasant
Padella
servant's deeper
my
of
fit
of his master, the
in the garden
caught in the act of stealing them to
is
Unable
satisfy his
crime warning him: "The next time stay away from the
peers
and
stick
with yours: turnips,
garlic, leeks,
onions, and
with sorghum bread." 14
shallots along
If
degli Adenti.
punishing him harshly, his master haughtily underlines the
desire. After
fruit
by Sabadino
peaches are exalted in this novella as a delicious and refined
for a king, several physicians
who wrote about
fruit,
dietetics in the sixteenth
century condemned them harshly along with melons and strawberries.
Following the concept of the "great chain of being",
and strawberries were condemned
ly
on the
it is
melons
at least in part because they grow direct-
but the low opinion of peaches does not seem to
soil,
Curiously, while fruit in general was viewed as the noblest
produced by
clear that
among
fit.
the foods
were often considered poisonous. 15
plants, peaches themselves
-'Michele Savonarola confirms this view reminding his Lord "la utilità e malicia
del
nutrimento de
marnano.
le
cosse che nascano in terra." Libreto de tute
Un'altra volta lassa stare
le
fructe de
li
mei
rape, gli agli, porri, cepolle e le scalogne col
ed in Montanari, La fame
see
e
•^Botfi Platina
fruit.
translata
nome
nata
cum
Platina,
habent. Sero id
res
apud
maxime vero
quidem factum
et
cum
Persas gigni, et
ob earn rem
quos armis vincere non poterat, veneno
The
che sono
novella
is
le
quot-
modem critical edition
in Perside
difficultate,
as
unde ad nos
verum postea
a
Cyro inde ad Aegyptios
saltern necaret.
Confingunt
verosimilior videatur Aegyptio sole et caelo deinde mitigata fuisse."
Right Pleasure,
che'l persico in Persia era
non venenosa,
cosse,
delle tue
Basile.
"Persica tota Asia nascuntur
cruciatu
On
mangia
di sorgo."
sponte proveniunt. Fabulas mihi narrare videntur qui scribunt vene-
translata, ut
item quo
che se
and Savonarola report the very similar legend about peaches
poisoned
fere
pari e
pan
l'abbondanza, 108-109. For a
Le Porretane ed. by Bruno
ubique
le cosse
62-3.
I:
di
book
II,
148.
"Ma prima
voglio tua Signoria sapia
arbor venenosa, dapoi fu traslatata in Egypto e fata fue
che comprehenda tua Signoria." Savonarola, Libreto de tute
62.
— 36 —
le
The Forbidden Fruit
many of these
In
peaches are included
texts,
among
more
aphrodisiac foods
and
for gluttonous courtiers, such as eels, oysters, salmon, asparagus
fit
Melons shared
artichokes (Albala, Eating Right, 206).
pany and enjoyed
warned
that
negative fame in widely circulated folk tales
and popes had passed away
on melons.
tagruelic dinners based
16
after eating
pan-
and
In fact, in the works of physicians
nothing was considered more dangerous for one's
virtually
dieticians,
more
a yet
that even kings
unhappy com-
this
and melons because of
health than eating peaches
their ability to putrefy
the stomach and thus create venomous humours. Only the most coura-
in
geous doctors were willing to allow their charges to eat peaches or melons
—
one could not
if
of the meal so
resist
the temptation
—but then only
beginning
at the
The
have a chance to avoid the putrefaction problem.
as to
condemnation of melons was so widespread
Bologna, Pietro Nati,
felt
that
a
from
physician
the need to defend the fruit in a small treatise he
wrote about the more general topic of health during times of plague. Nati
observed that melons were no longer poisonous
—and
time
that they were regularly
Nati's study
is
consumed
interesting because
it
—
as
they were in Galen's
at courtier's tables.
how
shows
and dietary
practice
precepts did not always coincide: melons, peaches, and other types of fruit
were, in
houses.
enjoyed during meals and receptions offered
fact,
17
Yet, for others, like the
Venetian nobleman Luigi Cornaro, the
medical taboo was apparently followed. After having been
man, he decided
to test for himself if foods that tasted
^Savonarola, Libreto de
is
tute le cosse, 75-76.
repeated in different treatises from
Bertaldi: "I
ità,
che
gli
The same
tanto dessiderati
grandi, che molti sono morti, per
il
ill
young
as a
good were equally
prescription against melons
Platina to the
meloni, quando sono maturi a sufficienza
convengono, sono
gentlemen's
at
e
much
later
da molti Prencipi,
superfluo uso
Lodovico
che hanno tutte
d'essi,
le
qual-
e altri Signori
come
riferisce
il
Durando i.e. Castor Durante] ch'Albino imperatore tanto avido di mangiarne,
come ancor delle persiche, che in una sera mangiò dieci meloni d'Ostia e cento
persiche. Paulo Secondo Pontefice, morì d'apoplesia, havendo nella cena man[
Henrico settimo
giato
due gran meloni. Dicono Federico
ondo
imperatorii esser morti per l'uso d'essi. "Regole della sanità e natura decibi
di
Ugo Benzo
Senese, fol.
mente
et allo
coruttibili, e
si
essi le
proprietà loro,
li
biasimano come nocivi
stomacho, perciò diceva Galeno che e sono freddi, humidi,
quali cose nel vero
esperienza
e Alberto sec-
422.
/"Oltre a questo narrando
corpo
terzo,
che mangiandone dispongono
non
si
lo
possono già dire de Poponi
stomacho
al
vomito,
nostri, conciosia
al
facille
che per
vegga, mangiarsene nelle tavole de gentil'huomini in gran quantità
e continuare le settimane e
i
mesi
interi senza passare
ne mangino. "Breve discorso intorno
alla
mai un giorno che
natura del popone,"
— 37 —
2.
e'
non
Laura Glannetti Ruggiero
good
was often claimed
for his health, as
popular
in
he was convinced that the popular lore was
he decided that he liked
right:
were not
their pleasant taste,
While doing
liked very
fruit
at all
this [test]
I
Through
lore.
and cold wine but that
good
they, despite
for his health:
found out that that claim was
much rough and
practice
and the medical taboo
false
false,
because
I
very cold wine as well as melons and other
fruit... 18
Luigi Cornaro's experiments confirmed his decision to live a
Still if
restrained
many
attracted
tispieces
renouncing peaches and melons, those succulent
life
others
and drew
of many sumptuous cookbooks
Messisbugo
—where
courtiers are
—such
shown
as that
in the act
by Christopharo da
of offering them to their
princes (Albala, Eating Right, 13). In Messisbugo's
tion of
fruits
attention to themselves from the fron-
book
there
is
no men-
any physician's negative advice; melons and peaches appear
at dif-
moments during banquets, often together with other types of food
deemed dangerous. 19 As Jean Louis Flandrin has demonstrated, around the
ferent
end of the sixteenth-century
dietetics
and cookbooks took
different paths:
was the beginning of the so-called "liberation of the gourmet" and the
it
enjoyment of good cooking (Flandrin,
"
From
rejected certain foods not only because they
also because they
Gastronomy")
Dietetics to
This separation, however, progressed slowly and
texts that moralistically
were bad for the health but
were identified with the corrupt habits of the court con-
tinued to proliferate. 20
Medical-dietetic literature of the sixteenth-century was closely attuned
to
and contributed
to the process that, in
labelled the "civilization of taste."
Norbert
(Albala,
Elias's vision,
"Però mi posi diligentissimamente à voler conoscere
i
che
mi
giovassero, ò pur
io
anzi è
fossero di
che fossero a mio
cibi,
proposito, e prima deliberai di farne sperienza, se quelli che
mi
al
nocumento, per conoscere
gusto piacevano
se quel
havea già tenuto per vero, e che verissimo universalmente
il
fondamento
di tutti
i
sensuali, che
vero, che dice che quello che sa
che era
falso,
perchè a
e gl'altri frutti."
De
me
il
seguono
buono, notrisce
has been
Eating Right, 217-218). As
i
si
proverbio
crede che sia
loro appetiti, era in fatto
e giova.
Il
che facendo
vin brusco e freddissimo sapea bono, e così
i
ritrovai
meloni
la vita sobria, e. 8.
^Messisbugo, "Banchetti, composizioni di vivande
et
apparecchio generale."
See for instance the works by the Calvinist expatriate Guglielmo Grataroli
where courts
rule. Albala,
are chastised as die place
where
Eating Right, 26.
— 38 —
sloth, gluttony
and perverse
taste
The Forbidden Fruit
noted, the diffusion of books on dietetics where the prevalent attitude was
works written
moralistic was relatively recent in that century. In
earlier
only a few foods were openly condemned; restrictions hinged on moderation.
as
The
natural attraction for certain foods
guiding principles. With
even be seen
its
and
their
good
taste
were seen
pleasant taste, fruit in moderation could
as therapeutic in this context.
One
possible explanation for
the changing attitude of sixteenth-century writers with respect to melons,
that conceptions of body, pleasure,
peaches and other
fruits
changed along the
lines suggested
is
by
Elias.
Foods that had
and food
qualities that
were similar to humours deemed positive were nutritious and foods that
were different were restricted to correcting humoral imbalances. For
teenth-century authors, however, there
as a
key factor
in dietary decisions
is
a shift to repression
—hunger and good
taste are
six-
of instincts
no longer
a
positive signs of the body's humoral or other needs, but rather potential
temptations in a moral battle waged over controlling the desires of the
body and
its
good,
tastes
appetites.
as
One
should eat what
was no longer
to correct imbalances, but this
taste
is
good
for health, not
Cornaro already affirmed. Food could be used
to be controlled
as a
by desire and
but by doctors and experts in health both physical and
now
Certain foods, delicious and
physical
and mental
tempting, could
illnesses, sexual perversion,
of suspect foods included
fruit this list
all
now
what
medicine
spiritual.
lead inevitably to
even death. Along with
those that like sweets,
fat
meats
or sausages were portrayed in carnivalesque representations where they
symbolized gustatory and sexual license and lower-class
Eating Right, 180-181).
tastes
(Albala,
important to remember, however, that these
It is
foods were regularly served during upper class banquets, appeared in cook-
books, and were
consumed by people
of Italian
much
fruit at
fruit.
meals even
as
in their
everyday meals.
remarked on the richness and abundance
British travelers in Italy often
they referred to the dangers of eating too
William Cecil received from
his son's tutor, before his leaving
for Italy, the following warning:
It is
to be feared that
Mr. Thomas
country, and being given
ness, as
shall
also to eat
not bear the great heats of that
much
fruit,
may soon
fall
into sick-
he did in France by that occasion (Olsen, "Poisoned Figs," 236)
William Thomas, one of the
first
English historians of
admitted to having been converted to eating
renouncing the heavy meat-based diet of
Italy,
actually
fruit after living in Italy,
his
native country
(Olsen,
"Poisoned Figs," 240). Melons also particularly attracted him, but he
warned
his readers to abstain
from eating them during the summer when
— 39 —
Laura Giannetti Ruggiero
they were ripe and
sweetness
full
even observed ambiguously that their
no one can
so attractive that
is
many that they die
Thomas know the
He
of juice.
as a result (Olsen,
resist
and some even
it
eat so
"Poisoned Figs," 247) Did William
medical proscriptions? His words and those of other
British travelers in sixteenth-century Italy stress the conflict
between the
prohibition of such "dangerous" foods and the everyday experience of
ing and eating
and theory seem
Practice
The
insistence
ic ideal
to build a dietet-
many ways
as its rejection in
life. It
these foods
was
taboo. Peaches
as
being
as significant in
has been hypothesized that the stronger the prohibition of
at the
dangerous and
as
to diverge profoundly, then, in this period.
on prohibition and the on-going attempt
must be seen
everyday
liv-
in Italy.
time
illicit
—
—
as strange food, as
food
and melons came
food
fit
became the
the stronger
originally
from
only for courtiers,
desire to break the
Persia
and from the
Middle East, lands of fabled beauty, abundance and corrupt customs, lands
often associated in popular belief with sodomy; thus their fruits could be
21 Nonetheless,
seen as a sort of suspicious food right from their origins.
is
interesting to note that the taboo against these fruits
grew
in close
it
con-
junction with a growing market for such food, the fashion of having fruit
trees
and gardens
and
in Renaissance villas
a general higher level
of con-
sumption. 22
Literature, however,
might suggest a deeper and more compelling reason
yet for aversion to these fruits in the Renaissance
the strange disjunction between practice
erature
es,
saw
a great
contemporary
enemy
and
and
also help to explain
theory. For while dietetic
in forbidden fruits, especially
literature
lit-
melons and peach-
used those and other food images to represent
and celebrate the forbidden
fruits
21 Rosenberger, "Arab Cuisine and
sexuality, illicit sex
of Renaissance
and
Contributions to European Culture": "Arab
Baghdad from afar: melons packed in ice and
along with prized Damascus grapes and plums. The
Its
princes ordered fruit brought to
shipped
in lead containers,
Middle East was apparently the
the Greeks
these species
cot
[...]
original
home
of a
number of species known
and Romans. The Arabs played the important
and making them known over
a
wide
area.
and the peach, which was soon acclimatized
we have about
antiquity,
the diffusion of citrus fruit
is
What
as sweet, refreshing treats."
219.
zz Flandrin, "Introduction: The Early Modern Period."
— 40 —
apri-
information
The melon known
was joined by the watermelon, which came from India.
widely cultivated
to
of improving
These include the
in Iran.
unreliable.
role
since
Both were
The Forbidden Fruit
especially
sodomy. The so-called paradoxical encomium was the preferred
poetic form used by Francesco Berni and his followers. In
an everyday simple object, food, or even an unpleasant
syphilis
—
with
played
wittily
metaphors. 23
The
upon
and drew
erotic poetry of Francesco
the praise of
it,
illness
—such
obscene
or
erotic
as
Giovanni Mauro,
Berni,
Agnolo Firenzuola, Giovanni Della Casa,
Annibal Caro, and a much wider circle of their followers, the Accademia
Anton Francesco
Grazzini,
dei Vignaiuoli, delighted especially in playing with the interchangeability of
those forbidden fruits and the bodily parts they represented and then in the
way
this
metaphorical interchangeability could be used to describe the
pleasures of sodomy.
The Accademia
dei Vignaiuoli originated in
humanists and poets
first
earlier
founded by Pomponio Leto
and the poets
1532 from a group of
gathered in the Accademia
in the
that took part in the
most noted
classics
—were
and who wrote
accomplished humanists
classical
of Boccaccio's Decameron.
An
that
was
Francesco Berni
Accademia dei Vignaiuoli, from Agnolo
Firenzuola to Giovanni Della Casa and Annibal Caro
all
Romana
fifteenth-century. 24
—
to cite only the
who knew
Latin and the
poems, comedies, and novelle in imitation
invitation to a ludic style of
life
that will be
attached to the Accademia dei Vignaiuoli is anticipated in a letter written by
Francesco Berni to Francesco Bini in 1529:
We must live until we die, despite those who don't like
tant thing
to live happily, as
is
I
is
you
to do,
it,
but the impor-
by attending those ban-
Rome, and by writing
quets which are taking place in
because this
invite
as little as
you can;
the victory, which conquers the world (Frantz, Festum
Voluptatis, 26). 25
23ç)n sixteenth-century
del Cinquecento
ly
chapter
II:
Italian erotic
and Longhi,
"La cucina
poetry
see:
Marzo, Studi
sulla poesia_erotica
Lusus. Il capitolo burlesco nel Cinquecento, especial-
di Parnaso."
On
Francesco Berni and his works see
Francesco Berni, ed. Nigro.
^On the Accademia de' Vignaiuoli see:
Studi sulla poesia erotica,
13-23,
Reynolds] 17, 52-53 and the chapter
Frantz, Festum Voluptatis, 24-35, Marzo,
Renaissance
Humanism,
by Anne
[ed.
"Roma 1532-1537: Accademia
per burla"
pp. 51-64 in Romei, Berni e Berneschi.
25"A
vivere
havemo
fino alla morte a dispetto di chi
non
vuole: e
'1
vantaggio è
come conforto a far voi: attendendo a frequentar quelli
banchetti, che si fanno per Roma, e scrivendo sopra tutto manco che potete.
Quia haec est victoria, quae vincit mundum." Francesco Berni a M.Gio.
vivere allegramente,
Francesco Bini, Lettere facete e piacevoli di diversi grandi uomini e chiari ingegni,
vii,
36-37.
— 41 —
Laura Giannetti Ruggiero
— mocking
Another
of dedication
classical letters
letter
—
written by
Berni to Francesco Bini in 1534, could be read as the perfect poetic manifesto
of the group; in
many
enjoy in
it
Berni salutes
senses their gardens
and above
that
you
all
you
his blessing in giving
pitchfork as long as a
hand and
good
a
the others to the very
all
Giovanni Della Casa, and to
you
his friends
all
and
that they
good natured Mr. Molza,
the Divine
Academy.
a large Priapus for
beam between your
will
and wishes
harvest:
legs
be bothered neither by
Mr.
to
May God
grant
your garden, with a
and
a big scythe in
frost, fog,
worms
your
or foul
winds, and that you might have beans and peas in their pods and peach-
and
es
carrots
year round, as
all
den here which
I
I
desire for
take care of and keep
up
my own small
as
much
as
I
and
failing gar-
can. 26
appears that the poets of Berni's circle amused themselves in ban-
It
quets both poetic and
real,
both culinary and sexual, in which we
may
pre-
sume, peaches and melons were consumed despite medical warnings and
legal proscriptions.
In their
poems dedicated
to the forbidden fruits there also appears to
be a conscious playing with the pedantic side of their
humanists.
the one
hand Berni and
his followers
touch, the reference to ancient
classical
showed
Roman
own
avocations as
could not
resist
the
or Greek literature that
and wit; but, in a way similar to what we find in the
comedy tradition based on classical models, humanist writers
the same time mock the comic side of the would-be
their learning
"erudite"
could
On
at
humanist/pedant
who
could not say anything without basing
it
on
a clas-
and because of this, often spouted much that was laughable non-
sical text
sense to the
common
sense of the day.
Much
such pedants in
like
Renaissance comedies, the fifteenth and sixteenth-century corpus of medical-dietetic literature
cially
trary to
also heavily based
on ancient
auctoritas, espe-
gli altri al
tutta quella divina
il
da benissimo Signor Molza, a
Academia. Così
vostro orto, con
che non
vi s'accosti
vi dia
una fuscina
mai ne
brinata,
Dio
trabaie fra
M. Giovanni
grazia di avere
gambe
mio
A
una
falciazza in
si
come
mano:
e
pestilente: e
desidero d' havere
horticciuolo fallito qua giù, che attendo pure a raffazzonarlo quanto
posso..." Lettere facete,
Frantz.
e
della Casa, e a
un priapone grande
ne nebbia, ne bruchi, ne vento
habbiate fave e bacelli, e pesche e carote tutto l'anno:
io nel
how con-
contemporary practice or simple everyday understanding, were
°"e sopra
per
was
Galen and Hippocrates, authors whose opinions, no matter
xii,
46-48.
I
have slightly modified the translation by
Priapus was a phallic boundary marker used in ancient
demarcate and protect property.
— 42 —
Rome
to
The Forbidden Fruit
tirelessly
Making fun
repeated by one Renaissance author after the other.
condemning fruits such as peaches and melons
sternly
warned
which were
against in this classical tradition, then, offered
another opportunity to mock playfully some of the more extreme characteristics of their own humanist pretensions and at the same time cleverly
extol sodomy - both were, in a witty way that was irresistible to Berni and
of such humanistic
texts
word-smiths, formally forbidden
his fellow
demned sodomy,
and melons
fruits
own
right
were forbidden by the
Church con-
to
—than
—
sodomy
playfully extol
to praise peaches
classical dietetic
What
medical texts reiterated by humanist authors.
Renaissance
the
represented here by peaches and melons, while peaches
in their
berneschi poets
which, in the everyday
The law and
world, were enjoyed by those in the know.
better
the forbidden
way
for the
of the
sin
and melons, the forbidden
and
fruits
of
the Renaissance?
soon became the most important member of the
Berni
Francesco
Accademia de Vignaiuoli and
poets, as
clear in the
is
his leadership
beginning
lines
was recognized by the other
of Francesco Maria Molza Capitolo
de'fichi:
"Di lodare
il
quando Febo
che
'1
mellone avea pensato
sorrise e
fico disse resti
Non
Però, se di seguir brami
che
'1
fia
vero
abbandonato.
il
sentiero,
Bernia corse col cantar suo pria,
drizzar quivi lo 'ingegno or fia mestiere" 27
I
thought to praise the melon,
not be the case that the
path
/
fig will
That Berni ran up with
here and now.
(my
/
when Febus
be neglected"
his early
/
poetry
smiled and
said:
/
"It
should
However, if you wish to follow the
/
It is
necessary to stiffen your wit
translation)
In the following years, several authors followed the path laid out by
Berni and contemporary editors produced numerous collections of this
pun-full erotic poetry, a regular ghiottoneria of fruit, sex and sodomy. 28
understand
this literature
it is
^' Molza, "Capitolo de' Fichi",
^°For
a
list
To
helpful to search for "euphemistic substitu-
w.
1-6, p. 43.
of the most important sixteenth-century collections of erotic and bur-
lesque poems, see Marzo, Studi sulla poesia erotica, 7 n. 2.
— 43 —
Laura Giannetti Ruggiero
tions"
—
as
Jean Toscan did in his pioneering and exhaustive study of Italian
Renaissance erotic language
cultural
and
—but
historical context.
examination for
For the extensive use of images of forbidden
and
clear that Berni
it is
this literature in
its
fascination with descriptions of fruit in
erotic poetry certainly warrants a closer
an accident;
put
also crucially to
The
rich nuances.
its
poetry was not
fruits in erotic
and imitators were well
his followers
aware of dietetic proscriptions that labelled certain types of fruit dangerous
and
for one's health
lel,
at the
same time extremely
the same was true for sodomy:
it
desirable. In a neat paral-
was desired, forbidden, and frequent-
ly practiced.
Berni's
the
delle pèsche, written in
1522, turns on one of
uses of peaches in this genre, the
metaphor based on the
famous Capitolo
more popular
similar shape
and look of a peach and
a youth's bottom. In other
rounded shape of melons or apples were used
in the
poems
the
same way. 29 The
Capitolo delle pèsche rejected completely the contemporary medical opinions that held that peaches corrupted the stomach. 30
Son
pésche apritive e cordiali,
le
saporite, gentil, restorative,
come
le
cose
hanno
e'
gli speziali."
(Berni, Rime, p. 50,
Peaches are aperitifs and cordials
aide the
stomach
and
in eating
^See
digesting]
for instance the "Capitolo di
in this
poem sodomy
sexual practice
"[...]
Ma
steron sul crudele,/
il
lor frutto,
melo per
l'asciutto./
/
E
si
tas
is
as
Dicendo
al
Dar, per
non
at first
Ha
suo fin traggie/
le
lor pastocchie sopra
il
restorative
/
in lode delle mele." Interestingly
male-male
poi n'ha posto per
fare
and
translation)
son risolute a qualche amico,/
but also
mostro
al
piaggie./ le
il
De
as
male-female
are called into question:
mondo
donne
al
il
valor
primo
Fico;/ Poi ancor esse
le
han
mele, ch'elle han dietro
Onde si scorge hoggi
Che vanno spesso in barca per
loro giardin mendico./
tutto/ Usarsi, e fino a certi trasandati,/
Leggi in Galeno, in Hippocrate, e in tanti/ Altri, che fur dottor di
medecina,/ Perchè di questo
•*°It
Tasty, delicate
and the medical authorities of the past
Ond ogn'huomo
calato le vele/
/
(my
Andrea Lori
understood
tempo, ch'ogni cosa
'1
delle mele,/
al
is
the original sense of drinks that
[in
Just like the products of the apothecary,
w. 43-45)
io
non vo
dir più innanzi."
interesting to note that Berni actually quotes the triad of medical auctori-
of the past saying that "Dioscoride, Plinio e Teofrasto/ non hanno
delle pèsche bene/ perché
non
scritto
ne facevano troppo guasto." "X. Capitolo delle
pèsche (avanti l'agosto 1522)," pp. 49-51 in Berni, Rime. This excellent edition
by Danilo Romei explains
all
the erotic metaphors in the poems.
— 44 —
The Forbidden Fruit
recommended eating peaches before the meal
recommends enjoying them all the
dinner. The sexual metaphor is clear:
If the learned literature
earlier, 31
noted
as
Berni humorously
time, but especially after
O
frutto sopra gli altri benedetto,
buono
ma
Oh
mezzo
inanzi, nel
inanzi
buono
most blessed
fruit
e dietro pasto;
e di dietro perfetto!" (Berni, Rime, p. 49,
/
Good
w. 10-12)
before the meal, in the middle and behind
/
But especially good in front and perfect from behind! (my translation)
Dietary theories are used by the berneschi poets as a perfect pretext to
insist
on the healthy quality of
verses
by Ercole Bentivoglio:
Le
al
men
buone
nocive, anzi salubri e
gusto e a lo stomaco più grate:
massime
et le
che
i
fichi e le pere
pèsche, che
si
e'l
melon
piaccion a
i
preti
soglion usar d' ogni stagione. 32
le
Fruit that
comes with cheese
/
not bad, actually
Is
Quite pleasing to the stomach and to the
/
And
as in the following
formaggio accompagnate
frutte dal
son
- and sodomy —
fruit
peaches which priests most love
/
it is
Especially
healthy and good
pears
/
and melons
taste
/
And
normally use in every season, (my
figs,
translation)
Melons
also
had
their advocates: the poet
praised their virtues as leading one
O
popon degno
io
mi
acciò
ti
ogni monarchia
d'
mi scorga per
-'I
find the
Anton Francesco Grazzini
good path of sodomy:
volto con divote ciglia,
la
buona
via. 33
Melon worthy of every kingdom
I'll
on
to the
good
path,
(my
/
I
look upon you with devotion
/
So that
translation)
For instance see Michele Savonarola's advice regarding melons: "Voleno esser
manzati in anti pasto,
lubricare.
il
Generano vento
perchè manzati dopo pasto fano
tute le cosse, 75. Savonarola's opinion, that
meal,
is
il
cibo del stomaco
e cuossì fanno venire la colica," Savonarola, Libreto de
melons should be eaten before the
repeated several times by various sixteenth and seventeeth-century
authors, for instance Bertaldo, Regole della sanità e natura de' cibi di Ugo Benzo
Senese.
*^See "Del Formaggio
"Quoted
in
al lettor
buon compagno."
Toscan, Le Carnaval du langage, 1:511.
— 45 —
Laura Giannetti Ruggiero
The poet Antonio Mario
excites
nourishes the stomach, refreshes the
desires,"
all
Negrisoli happily declared that "the
melon
and
liver,
is
Ganymede's favourite food. 34
The metaphoric
use of peaches
and melons can be found
early in Italian
Lorenzo
literature, especially in the canti carnascialeschi. In particular,
Medici in
"Canzona
his
degli innestatoti,
grafting plants, including peaches
—
a
poem
de'
dedicated to the act of
plays with lengthily descriptions of dif-
The anonymous "Canzona
most people prefer
—
between males
ferent types of sexual contact
females. 35
"
between males and
as well as
delle pèsche" while recognizing that
to use peaches after the
meal (Tusa dreto") concludes
with a general exhortation to enjoy peaches at any time:
Alcun
ma
l'usa al pasto avanti,
di noi innanzi e 'ndreto;
quel sol piace agl'ignoranti,
più parte l'usa dreto:
la
ognun
cheto,
l'usi e stiesi
'nanzi o dreto o dove vuole. 36
Some
enjoy
it
keep quiet
/
it
before
virtues of peaches
that
-'Così
genti,/
the
se in
and melons
modet n
Ma
[...]
i
Alternando
chiede,/ e di
il
come
gloria e
Poppone
it
before and after;
it
/
and
translation)
Con
a chi
la
ha
Non
Ganimede,
honor
al
huom
trova
si
non
/
intendo
al resto io
di largo
same group
in the
/
non
gran virtù
de bianchi
il
mente accorta
e'1
di tutto
e sodi, e
E meno
[...]
'1
afferra/
ventre sferra./
buon vino
ei se
ne
Più di questo alcun cibo
vero è questo/ nettar, ch'ad ogni gusto
il
ai
lor serra/ la sta-
Poppone ogn'huom
fegato rinfresca, e
il
exalt
uno Augusto
attendo./
humor, ch'entro
—
fra l'altre
sì vii
stimi
si
scorta/ d'un bicchiere di
la
of sodomy
does not demonstrate
resto." Negrisoli Ferrarese,
si
"Capitolo
Signor Giuseppe Malatesta."
46: "puossi ogni pianta, e pèsche anche innestare." De'Medici, "IV.
Canzona
D
boccon sempre
—
bacchetta in mano,
e lo conforta,/ e
piace/ l'affermò
delle laudi del
v.
(my
this fact
avertite Signor, ch'io solo
due spesso
like
Just let everybody use
/
an exclusive sexual practice or cate-
voglia invesca./
la
tristo fecondi./
stomaco nudrisse,
^See
But we
Other poems
mal rottondi,/ che son
gion mia, e d'odor
non
as
poche frondi/ fermo rampollo,
spalancati, e a
conface/
/
after
are clearly associated with the idea
sense.
ch'avendone uno, e
fra
it
written by Bet ni and the Vignaiuoli that extol the
Poppone ogn' altra
'1
use
of male-male sexual practice, but
incontinenti.
ch'han
già
Most
male sodomy was seen by them
gory per
lo
/
Before or after or wherever they prefer,
The group of poems
in the sense
meal
[the peach] before the
Rude people only enjoy
degli innestatori," in Trionfi e canti carnascialeschi.
XLIV. Canzona
delle pèsche" in Trionfi e canti carnascialeschi,
— 46 —
w- 15-20.
The Forbidden Fruit
sex with
lus,
women
speaking in the praise of the
or simply laud the phal-
figs
represented with different images of fruit or vegetables.
The poems on
peaches and melons nonetheless capture the readers' attention for the privileged place given to the passive side of sodomy, usually considered the least
honourable, because of
its
association with the female sex.
In sixteenth-century Italy
sodomy was
crime against nature, God, and society and
worthy of
of
and
such was regularly deemed
as
punishment. Nonetheless,
capital
ideally organized in a patriarchal
rest
held to be a mortal sin and a
it
theory as well as in everyday
society. In
were supposed to take the dominant active
sought out the peaches and melons
teens took the passive role
same model was
—
was widely practiced and
hierarchical fashion that mirrored the
—
reality,
role, sexually
young adult males
and socially — they
while younger youths in their early
offering peaches
regularly presented even as
and melons. In
it
literature the
was often mocked
in the
humanistic student-teacher/pedant relationships in Renaissance comedies.
It is
interesting to note, however, that even this passive-active hierarchy
turned on
its
head by the irreverent Berni when he concludes
peaches by arguing that, "the most fortunate
peaches." 37
Is this
is
he/
who
his
is
poem on
can give or take
merely a playful reversal or a suggestive indication that
the active/passive age hierarchy that was clearly the ideal for Renaissance
male/male sexual relations was more
flexible
than
it
appears and that
some
males both desired peaches and offered them, perhaps Berni himself? 38
If
-*'
"Io
it is
true that sexuality
ho sempre avuto
gli altri
avventurato
is
a "discourse"
fantasia,/ per
sia/ colui
—
in a Foucaldian sense
—
that
quanto possi un indovino apporre,/ che sopra
che può
le
pèsche dare e tórre." "Capitolo delle
pèsche," w.73-76.
-'""in fact his
that he
poem was
so taken as an expression of his true preference sexually
was charged by
his
enemies with being a sodomite." Frantz, Festum
The Dialogo contra i poeti written by Francesco Berni in 1525
explores, among other topics, the connections between poets and sexuality. He
starts by telling Orpheus story's (from the Metamorphoses) charging him first
Voluptatis, 30.
with the "bella inventione," and then has the interlocutor Sanga
poets famous for their preference for
of the dialogue Sanga
refers to
list
a
group of
young boys (w. 206-209). Toward the end
some of the most famous
capitoli written
by Berni
Marco whether he
Le anguille, Le pesche and La
including the Capitolo delle pèsche. Asked by the interlocutor
was
a poet or not because
he wrote poems such
as
primiera, Berni responds that he did not consider himself a poet because of those
works and he did not make enemies
mies
it
just for writing
them.
If
he had
made
ene-
was because he did not concede them homoerotic favors ("Anzi più tosto
credo esser voluto male da qualcuno che ara voluto, verbigrazia,
pèsche, che sapete piacciono a molti, e
non
— 47 —
gliel'arò
ch'i' gli
dia
le
potuto dare così presto, e va
Laura Giannetti Ruggiero
interacts
with contemporary social and cultural practices and discourses,
we cannot
poets
to
consider the discursive choices
made by Berni and
the other
be merely accidental. Writing their erotica ghiottoneria, the
mocked
Vignaiuoli and their imitators
which they
the cultural humanistic milieu in
same time, the popular
lived and, at the
ism and sodomitical pleasures
as strictly
belief that
saw human-
connected. 39 Italian literary
criti-
cism has recently recognized the centrality of the erotic and homoerotic
component
in Renaissance poetry
worthy of
sidered a topic
and
analysis in
literature in general. It
own
its
"serious" issues. 40
mere diversion from more
right,
not
now
is
con-
an occasional
as
The forbidden
fruits
of the
Renaissance represent often-conflicting beliefs, values and desires expressed
by contemporary medical and dietary theory,
tice. Yet, at
the
same time, they served
literature,
and everyday prac-
nicely as a series of Renaissance
metaphors that were invested with a rich and playful array of meanings by
poets like Berni and his followers. For them, the image of fruits such as
peaches and melons was a privileged
imagination, and give
sodomy
concluded, "but everybody
coni that ghiotti
a
site to extol
sodomy, play with the
more everyday common
likes the
good morsels," 41
that
sense.
As Berni
the buoni boc-
is,
and ghiottoni certainly enjoyed.
The University ofMiami
discorrendo." {Dialogo contra
i
Can we assume from this literary
Or was it just like the poems a literary
circles? Or could it have been a self-defence
poeti, 212).
—
—
statement that Berni was a sodomite?
make fun of humanistic
against sodomy prosecution or perhaps instead a covert admission of his
preference? The answer lies in further research on Berni and his circle.
game
-^See
to
Accademia dei
ogni poeta canta/ Più tosto
nobil pianta?/
Come
Vignaiuoli,
i
lauri
i
piene veggiam
Giovanni Mauro:
pampani
le
e le spiche,/
Ch'eran così a quella etade amiche/ Così
Questo
frutto cantar, eh' orna le
a
modem
eh'
Che
questa gloriosa e
De le picciole mente, e de
dovremmo noi da mille capi/
mense/ Di Duchi, Regi, Imperatori e Papi,/
Ognun' ne mangia, e non è chi ci pense,/ Et in scriver
Son le voglie de' poeti intense,/ I quali dovriano di
la testa/
by
d'onde vien,
carte antiche,/
Priapi,/
d'hedere, o di lauri ornar
della fava"
"Ma
from the "Capitolo Primo
for instance the following verses
a poet of the
sexual
le
pesche, e
gli
martelli/
fave e di baccelli/
Alla barba di Cesari e Marcelli."
Non
w. 31-45. For
edition see Marzo, Note sulla poesia erotica, 73-84.
u See for instance, Marzo, "La lingua
tion Queer Italia:
Same-Sex Desire
ma, perché ad ogniun piace
i
come
distintivo di genere"
in Italian Literature
buoni bocconi" Berni, "Capitolo
29.
— 48 —
and the
collec-
and Film.
delle pèsche"
v.
The Forbidden Fruit
The author
Suzuki,
Miami, Maria
Anne Cruz,
Guido Ruggiero,
Modern Writing Group
Modern
criticism. Earlier versions
of
were pre-
this article
Cultural Studies Conference in Orlando, FL, in
2004
annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in Cambridge,
The author would like to thank the participants at both
comments and helpful responses, and in particular Will Fisher.
England, in 2005.
for their
at
Pamela Hammons, Mihoko
Mary Lindemann, Richard Godbeer and
anonymous referees for Quaderni d'italianistica, for
and
their valuable suggestions
at the
Early
Galli Stampino,
Barbara Woshinski,
as well as the
sented at the Early
and
members of the
wishes to thank the
the University of
sessions
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