Lesbian (in)visibility in Italian Renaissance culture: Diana and other cases of donna con donna.
Current conceptualizations of sexual identity in the West are not necessarily useful to an historian investigating "lesbianism" in the social history and visual representations of different periods. After an overview of Renaissance documents treating donna con donna relations which examines the potentially positive effects of condemnation and silence, the paper focuses on Diana, the goddess of chastity, who bathed with her nymphs as an exemplar of female bodies preserved for heterosexual, reproductive pleasures. Yet the self-sufficiency and bodily contact sometimes represented in images of this secluded all-female gathering might suggest "deviant" responses from their viewers.
Simons
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Department of the History of Art, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109-1357.
D001154:Art / Q000266:history*; D005060:Europe; D005260:Female; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D049691:History, Medieval; D018452:Homosexuality, Female / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D009229:Mythology