Master's Thesis by Aidan Flynn
Master's Thesis, 2021
This thesis examines the carnal sin of sodomy in early modern Florence, Italy (1432–1600). More s... more This thesis examines the carnal sin of sodomy in early modern Florence, Italy (1432–1600). More specifically, this project investigates one particular sodomitical locale: the San Niccolò bathhouse. Domenico Cresti’s (called ‘Il Passignano’) Bathers at San Niccolò (1600) depicts a contemporaneous scene of all-male bathing, imbued with homosexually suggestive acts within a locatable urban space. What can this particular image tell us about the lived realities of sodomy in early modern Florence? When examined alongside topographical, legal, health, and religiopolitical archives, Bathers illuminates the intricacies of same-sex pleasure and punishment. In identifying this specific site along the Arno River, and combining Bathers with various written documents, one can better achieve a history of sexual persecution, its surveillance, and institutional efforts to control illicit sex across the urban landscape. The bathhouse, a simultaneously public and private space, was a center for relaxation, sociability and health but also functioned as an arena for homosexual encounters. Sodomy was blasphemous, generating anxiety throughout early modern Italian city-states. Citizens feared for their safety: a sodomite in their midst could provoke divine wrath, as it had in the biblical narratives of Sodom and Gomorrah—sexual sins could lead to urban destruction. Police forces were created to surveil and punish such abominable acts in order to maintain the sacrality of the urban interior. While these magistracies policed every parish, the Florentine bathhouse was more challenging: it permitted nakedness and, as such, often resulted in unsavory interactions between men. How might topographical and painterly representations of water, wantonness, and punishment allow the historian to check written accounts (legal, religious, literary) of sexual encounters within specific architectures—and vice versa? Looking at and beyond the figures in Bathers, this project investigates the represented backdrop in which sodomitical activities are depicted. In so doing, this project engages with larger historiographical issues, namely the ways in which studies on premodern sex and gender have and have not been mobilized through postmodern theories. This thesis combines Passignano’s artwork with other visual and written materials to challenge and expand on the ways in which sex, space, art, and society functioned in Renaissance Florence. © 2021 Aidan Flynn. All rights reserved.
Papers by Aidan Flynn
First Reader: Nature's Wild [Duets], 2022
Exhibition primer for Andil Gosine's exhibition, 'Nature's Wild [Duets],' at the Niagara Artists ... more Exhibition primer for Andil Gosine's exhibition, 'Nature's Wild [Duets],' at the Niagara Artists Centre of Fall 2022. This exhibition catalog essay combines art historical research with artistic practice, considering curatorial methods through a spatial lens, and invites queer theory and commentary to investigate and consider the works of Nous Atelier, Angie Quick, Sur Rodney (Sur), Kelly Sinnapah Mary, Aitak Sorahitalab, Joshua Vettivelu, and Andil Gosine. In this catalog entry, I invite the reader to consider Gosine's second installation in his 'Nature's Wild' exhibition series as a queer space towards an understanding of "something else."
Imprint, 2020
This short reflection—a provocation of sorts—considers the complex relationships between early mo... more This short reflection—a provocation of sorts—considers the complex relationships between early modern studies and postmodern theory. For the most part, these realms are divided but, every so often, are hesitantly united in powerful ways. I seek to understand the following: can postmodern methods of inquiry be used productively in the study of premodern subject matters, specifically in sex and gender histories on the deviant sodomitical body in art, architecture, law, and politics. These questions open up the longstanding debate between anachronism and efficacy in the applications of 20th and 21st century methods, primarily through the invocation of positionality as an investigative system for queer-identifying folks studying earlier queer histories—yet another (lexical) debate on anachronisms: how did "sodomitical histories" of the Renaissance become "homosexual ones," and when can they become "queer?" Without definitive answers, I muse.
Optical Correctness: History of Art Students' Association Annual Conference Journal, 2019
This paper investigates the relationship between ancient architectural forms and masculinity in t... more This paper investigates the relationship between ancient architectural forms and masculinity in the early seventeenth century, using two masque designs by the English architect Inigo Jones as case studies. The masques—a form of dramatic courtly entertainment—under examination are Prince Henry’s Barriers and Oberon, The Fairy Prince, performed in 1610 and 1611, respectively. The purpose of this study is to determine why and how Inigo Jones used classical architectural forms and imagery to articulate messages about male power, virility, and leadership for Prince Henry, son of King James VI & I. This essay combines primary source material with close readings of royal portraiture and the masque drawings to determine the reasons for, and ways by which, artists worked to construct a robust martial image for Henry through art, architecture, and spectacle.
This online publication uses the Digitally Encoded Census and Information Mapping Archive (DECIMA... more This online publication uses the Digitally Encoded Census and Information Mapping Archive (DECIMA) - a digital humanities platform at the University of Toronto - to visualize and discern early modern queer experiences, regulations, pleasures, and punishments in the Renaissance city. Click on the URL: http://arcg.is/1Xue94 to view this ArcGIS Online Map. Full abstract below:
Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Florentines understood sodomy as a foul act that violated God’s good natural order and the propriety of marriage and procreation. Hostility stemming from religious conviction was only the tip of the iceberg. In early modern Florence, the anxiety, experience, surveillance, and punishment of sodomy can be investigated spatially. The Florentine cityscape simultaneously hosted and prohibited sodomitical relationships and activity. The urban geography was illustrated by clandestine arenas of play and public spaces of civic and religious order. This polarity was not discrete but chaotically entangled, effectively blurring the physical and metaphoric boundaries between the sacred and the profane. Despite the intentions of contemporary leaders, spaces were not characterized by fixed meanings; rather, significance was injected and extracted by those who experienced and engaged with the urban landscape. In this way, public fear, civic and religious regulation, erotic experience, and spectacular methods used to punish sodomites functionally transformed the atmosphere and understanding of interior and exterior architectures.
Saeculum Academic Journal for the Study of Christianity and Culture, 2018
The European Reformations gave way to a new sect of Christianity: Protestantism, which, in many c... more The European Reformations gave way to a new sect of Christianity: Protestantism, which, in many countries, eclipsed Catholicism. Following Martin Luther’s posting of his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, which criticized the Catholic practice of selling indulgences, radical reformers following Luther’s theology engaged in acts of rebellion against the papacy. Among these events of insurgency were sporadic iconoclasms, in which reformers destroyed religious images in sacred spaces that were now seen as idolatry. In the cases of Protestant England, Wittenberg, and Strasbourg, iconoclasm gave way to a new aesthetic in religious art. Notably, the destruction of images did not signify a universal rejection of religious art, but assisted in fashioning a new theological perception of what art should mean in the ecclesiastical sphere. The purging of images associated with Catholicism led to a new Protestant aesthetic that minimized anxieties surrounding idolatry by incorporating text alongside religious iconography.
Conference Presentations by Aidan Flynn
The Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula during the twelfth through mid- fourteenth centuries is c... more The Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula during the twelfth through mid- fourteenth centuries is characterized as a period when Christians reestablished rule over these previously diverse medieval kingdoms. Such events necessitated new perceptions of religious minorities under a hegemonic Christian sovereign. During his reign (1252- 1284), King Alfonso X of Castile commissioned the illuminated manuscripts of the Cantigas de Santa María, completed between 1260 and 1284. Written in Galician- Portuguese, these illustrated codices are a collection of over four hundred songs (cantigas) that laud miracles of earthly intercession performed by the Virgin Mary, including conversion and eschatological intervention. Yet the Cantigas also reveal the complexities of religious politics in Alfonso X’s realm. In particular, the songs and corresponding images of Cantigas 4 and 108 develop similar anti-Jewish narratives that account for the contemporaneous Jewish polemic. In both tales, the Jewish patriarch commits seemingly inherent sinful and abhorrent acts that result in divine Marian intervention and, conclusively, in the conversion of the Jew’s son and wife. Anti-Jewish iconography is employed to heighten the Jew’s sinful acts and render him heretical, evil, and “other” within his predominantly Christian realm. In both Cantigas, visual signs evolve throughout the narrative as Jews convert to Christianity. In essence, visual symbolism is used in both Cantiga 4 and Cantiga 108 to enhance the villainy of Judaism, while extolling the morality and virtuosity of Christianity as the quintessential religion for ultimate salvation.
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Master's Thesis by Aidan Flynn
Papers by Aidan Flynn
Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Florentines understood sodomy as a foul act that violated God’s good natural order and the propriety of marriage and procreation. Hostility stemming from religious conviction was only the tip of the iceberg. In early modern Florence, the anxiety, experience, surveillance, and punishment of sodomy can be investigated spatially. The Florentine cityscape simultaneously hosted and prohibited sodomitical relationships and activity. The urban geography was illustrated by clandestine arenas of play and public spaces of civic and religious order. This polarity was not discrete but chaotically entangled, effectively blurring the physical and metaphoric boundaries between the sacred and the profane. Despite the intentions of contemporary leaders, spaces were not characterized by fixed meanings; rather, significance was injected and extracted by those who experienced and engaged with the urban landscape. In this way, public fear, civic and religious regulation, erotic experience, and spectacular methods used to punish sodomites functionally transformed the atmosphere and understanding of interior and exterior architectures.
Conference Presentations by Aidan Flynn
Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Florentines understood sodomy as a foul act that violated God’s good natural order and the propriety of marriage and procreation. Hostility stemming from religious conviction was only the tip of the iceberg. In early modern Florence, the anxiety, experience, surveillance, and punishment of sodomy can be investigated spatially. The Florentine cityscape simultaneously hosted and prohibited sodomitical relationships and activity. The urban geography was illustrated by clandestine arenas of play and public spaces of civic and religious order. This polarity was not discrete but chaotically entangled, effectively blurring the physical and metaphoric boundaries between the sacred and the profane. Despite the intentions of contemporary leaders, spaces were not characterized by fixed meanings; rather, significance was injected and extracted by those who experienced and engaged with the urban landscape. In this way, public fear, civic and religious regulation, erotic experience, and spectacular methods used to punish sodomites functionally transformed the atmosphere and understanding of interior and exterior architectures.