The anonymous accusation against Leonardo da Vinci
A note in the letterbox, four names, one genius: how Leonardo da Vinci was accused of sodomy in Florence in 1476.
On 9 April 1476, an inconspicuous note lies in the "tamburo" in Florence, a letterbox at the Palazzo della Signoria. Anyone who drops something in does not have to give their name. That is exactly the point: for decades, a dedicated authority, the "Officers of the Night", has been collecting accusations of sodomy.
The anonymous writer accuses four young men of having slept with seventeen-year-old Jacopo Saltarelli. Named are a goldsmith, a tailor, a scion of the powerful Tornabuoni family and a painter from the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio. His name: Leonardo da Vinci. He is a few days away from his twenty-fourth birthday.
Same-sex sex is forbidden in Florence and at the same time commonplace. Historians assume that in the late fifteenth century, a large proportion of the city's men ended up on the lists of suspects at some point. Only a fraction were convicted, often with nothing more than fines.
In Leonardo's case, too, the matter peters out. An anonymous accusation is not enough to open proceedings. Less than two months later, the accused are released on condition that no further accusation follows. That is not an acquittal. The file is simply closed.
For researchers, the sheet is nevertheless of inestimable value. It is the only document from Leonardo's lifetime that directly touches on his sexuality. Whether he loved men or lived abstinently is still debated by experts today. What is documented is that he never married and later lived for years with young men such as Salaì and Francesco Melzi. He even made Melzi his heir.
The relative tolerance had an expiry date, however. In the 1490s, the preacher of penance Girolamo Savonarola took power in Florence, and sodomy suddenly carried the death penalty. By then, Leonardo had long been working in Milan.