Nicky Mariano

Speranza

Rocke is Nicky Mariano Librarian, Biblioteca Berenson, Villa I Tatti, Firenze

Rocke, who holds a Ph.D. from SUNY Binghamton, is the author of Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence (Oxford University Press, 1996).

Rocke is co-editor of the volumes The Italian Renaissance in the Twentieth Century: Acts of an International Conference (Olschki, 1999), and Power, Gender and Ritual in Europe and the Americas: Essays in Memory of Richard Trexler (Victoria University, 2008).

Rocke’s book Forbidden Friendships is a groundbreaking study in the history of same-sex relations in late medieval and early modern Europe.

In it, Rocke examines the records of the Ufficiali di Notte, a magistracy that operated in Florence between 1432 and 1502.

During those 70 years, the magistracy investigated 17,000 (sic) men for sodomy, convicted 3,000, and gained confessions from thousands more—all this in a city with a population that hovered around 40,000.

From this vast database, Rocke has demonstrated that male same-sex relations were, in essence, part of the normal lifecycle for most Florentine males.

Drawing on this data, as well as on sermons and visual evidence, Rocke paints a stunningly complete picture of the homo-social culture of Renaissance Florence.

A reviewer in the English Historical Review describes Forbidden Friendships as “a deeply intelligent and important book that anyone interested in gender in any period should read.”

During the Michelangelo conference held at Syracuse, Rocke presented a fascinating paper on Michelangelo’s David.

In the paper, Rocke demonstrated how the current interpretation of the David as a gay icon in no way accords with perceptions of male beauty/desire current when Michelangelo created the work.