Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. He sculpted David. He shaped the entire trajectory of Western art. He was also, undeniably, queer, and the evidence is hiding in plain sight.
His poetry, letters, and friendships tell a story that art historians argued over for centuries and that some deliberately obscured. The man who gave us one of history's greatest artistic legacies also wrote passionate love sonnets to men, formed intense relationships that shaped his creative life, and lived in a world that demanded secrecy around same-sex love.
This episode explores the queerness woven through Michelangelo's life and art. We look at his relationships, the sonnets that were altered after his death to change male pronouns to female ones, and what his work might tell us about desire, beauty, and the human body when we read it through a queer lens.
Michelangelo was a queer icon four centuries before the term existed. His legacy belongs to us too.
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