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 ... Read morea 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, University of Miami, author of The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento 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, University of Pennsylvania, author of Erotic Subjects: The Sexuality of Politics in Early Modern English Literature Show Less