Male art in Vatican (1) : a guided tour

Numerous gay artists have decorated, painted, and sculpted wonderful treasures visible in the Vatican and Vatican Museums. Sometimes their works or inclination had to be discreet, still many expressed a strong eroticism in their male beauties.

A guided tour is now offered by Quikky, an Italian travel agency, called 'the secret gay Vatican tour'. This tour shows several homoerotic pieces, a sort of 'gay art history' of the Vatican. And the tour has got a large success, with articles published in the New York Times, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Out Traveler, Attitude, Vanity Fair, etc.

Lets have a look at some of these 'gay' treasures.

For paintings, of course there is the Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo, and the famous Ignudi.  And also the Last Judgment. 

One of the guide is Tony Adams, who used to be a Catholic priest. He said about that painting : ''And it's erotic art. It tells a spiritual story, but it doesn't deny the physical dimension." Quikky also organizes a tour in Milan, where you can see the Last Supper, by Leonardo Da Vinci. The tours are always given with extensive explanations linked to the 'hidden history' and private life of the artists, their models, or their lovers, and their art pieces of course.

In terms of sculptures observed during the tour, you can see the Apoxyomenos from Lysippus, who was a sculptor for Alexander the Great. Here with the fig leaf, which was added later on.

The Belvedere Apollo. Some considered it 'the sublime expression of Greek art'.

The busts from Hadrian, and from his lover Antinous.

 

The Laocoon and his sons. A famous and large sculpture, attributed to sculptors from the island of Rhodes. And a very old sculpture too, as it was discovered in 1505 in Rome.

St Sebastien, icon of many gays (see our previous posts on St Sebastien here).

And of course you can see many more sculptures, like angels, etc.

Sources:
The Guardian article
Quikky website
Yahoo style