Ganymede’s Garden: Homoeroticism and the Italian Landscape

The Italian landscape has for centuries been a locus amoenus of male same-sex desire. Serving as an idealized setting for homoerotic visual representation and narratives of self-discovery in painting, photography, and film, it has equally been the backdrop for historical social practices that gave rise to these associations. From Renaissance villa gardens to coastal enclaves that attracted gay artists and writers at the turn of the 20th century, this project examines sites and art works linking homoeroticism with Italian landscapes. The resulting monograph and digital humanities resource will contribute a new methodology for analyzing gay culture through a landscape framework.