Is This Love? Same-Sex Marriages in Renaissance Rome Giuseppe Marcocci Assistant Professor of Early Modern History, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy Abstract • In 1578, a same-sex community that gathered in a church, performing mar- riages between men, was discovered in Rome. Documentary evidence now verifies this story, reported by many sources, including a passage of Michel de Montaigne’s Travel Jour- nal, but which was for a long time denied by scholars. While briefly reconstructing this affair, this article explores the complex emotional regime surrounding the episode. In particular, it argues that those who participated in the ceremonies did so not only as an expression of affection for their partners, but also in an attempt to legitimize their relation- ships in a rite that imitated the Counter-Reformation sacrament of marriage. This approach challenges the predominant historiography on the birth of homosexuality and helps us to better understand the sentiments of those who were part of a same-sex community in Renaissance Rome. Keywords • Counter-Reformation Italy, criminal justice, history of emotions, homosexuality, News from Rome, same-sex marriage T he ancient basilica of San Giovanni a Porta Latina is in a quiet corner of Rome, enclosed by the Aurelian Wall, historical gardens, and Via Latina. Today tourists rarely visit it, while Romans know it as a church for weddings. On its official website prospective couples are warned that an atmosphere of respect and sobriety must characterize the rite; photographs in the basilica after the liturgy are allowed, “but none of a romantic nature.” 1 The loving couples married there today are unaware of the church’s sixteenth-century circumstances, when its interior was much more richly decorated and its sacred space was made available for a far less chaste use. The story of this circumstance is the subject of the present article. At first light on 13 August 1578, eight men were hanged on the bridge in front of Castel Sant’Angelo in the center of Rome. Their bodies were then burned at the Porta Latina, in the southeast of the Renaissance city, an un- usual place for a stake. Six of them were Spanish, one Portuguese, and an- other Slavic. Their names are reported in a selective list of condemned men in early modern Rome, published about one century ago by the liberal scholar Historical Reflections Volume 41, Issue 2, Summer 2015 © Berghahn Journals doi: 10.3167/hrrh.2015.410204 ISSN 0315-7997 (Print), ISSN 1939-2419 (Online) ••• ••• •••