It
was after fleeing into Italy and falling ill of a fever from fatigue and
exposure that Muret is said to have made the famous retort (to the
physician by his bedside who had said: "Faciamus experimentum in anima
vili"): "Vilem animam appellas pro qua Christus non dedignatus est
mori."[56]
A greater Humanist than Muret, Erasmus himself, seems as a young man, when
in the Augustinian monastery of Stein, to have had a homosexual attraction
to another Brother (afterward Prior) to whom he addressed many
passionately affectionate letters; his affection seems, however, to have
been unrequited.[57]
As the Renaissance developed, homosexuality seems to become more prominent
among distinguished persons. Poliziano was accused of pederasty. Aretino
was a pederast, as Pope Julius II seems also to have been. Ariosto wrote
in his satires, no doubt too extremely:--
"Senza quel vizio son pochi umanisti."[58]
Tasso had a homosexual strain in his nature, but he was of weak and
feminine constitution, sensitively emotional and physically frail.[59]
It is, however, among artists, at that time and later, that homosexuality
may most notably be traced.
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