Jacopo Saltarelli
Jacopo d’Andrea Saltarelli (b. 1459) was an apprentice goldsmith and male prostitute, about which nothing is known except the details of court records of several charges of prostitution, in one of which Leonardo da Vinci was among the accused.[1] In modern literature Saltarelli has been described as a model, although Gilbert discounts this, stating that the profession did not exist in his time,[2] probably overlooking the fact that what is meant is artists' model. On April 9, 1476, an anonymous denunciation was left in the tamburo (letter box) in the Palazzo della Signoria (town hall) accusing him of being "party to many wretched affairs and consents to please those persons who request such wickedness of him". The denunciation accused four people of engaging in sodomy with Saltarelli: Baccino, a tailor; Leonardo da Vinci; Bartolomeo di Pasquino; and Leonardo Tornabuoni, a member of the aristocratic Tornabuoni family. Saltarelli's name was known to the authorities because another man had been convicted of sodomy with him earlier the same year.[3] Charges against the five were dismissed on the condition that no further accusations appear in the tamburo. The same accusation did in fact appear on June 7 but charges were again dismissed.[4] Nothing more is known about Jacopo Saltarelli.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Abbott, p. 340
- ^ Gilbert et. al, p303 note 96
- ^ Crompton, p. 265
- ^ Wittkower and Wittkower, pp. 170—71
[edit] References
- Abbott, Elizabeth (2001). A History of Celibacy. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306810417.
- Crompton, Louis (2006). Homosexuality and Civilization. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674022335.
- Gilbert, Creighton and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1995). Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals. Penn State Press. ISBN 0271013125.
- Wittkower, Rudolph and Margaret Wittkower (2006). Born Under Saturn: The Character and Conduct of Artists : A Documented History from Antiquity to the French Revolution. New York, New York Review of Books. ISBN 1590172132.
