ABSTRACT
An uninformed reader of Ascanio Condivi's biography of Michelangelo of 1553 would never guess the important part played by Tommaso de' Cavalieri in the artist's life. In 1545 the quarrelsome Pietro Aretino had in a letter criticized the nudity of the figures in the Last Judgement for being pagan, indecent and more suited for a bathroom than for the Pope's chapel. He attempted to blackmail Michelangelo into sending him drawings by referring to the rumours of the artist's fondness for young men. The early 1530s appears to have been the period when Michelangelo s interest in young men was at its height. The young Symonds primarily stressed the Platonic and spiritual aspects of Michelangelo the lover, in relation to both Vittoria Colonna and Tommaso de’ Cavalieri. The Platonic notion of the love between males as infinitely superior to that involving a woman resulted in a certain fixation among the homosexual critics on Michelangelo's delineation of the male nude.
