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Dec 29, 2017, 10:03AM

Leonardo da Vinci, Abuser

Leonardo may have sexually abused a young boy.

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Leonardo da Vinci abused a child.

That's not supposed to be your takeaway from Walter Isaacson's massive Leonardo biography, released earlier this year. Isaacson is a Leonardo enthusiast; he wants you to celebrate the Renaissance artist's accomplishments as a scientist, a painter, and an engineer. For Isaacson, Leonardo is an inspiration. Leonardo was curious about everything; he loved to observe, to study, to think. Adapt Leonardo's habits of investigation and openness, Isaacson says, and you (yes, you!) can be a genius too.

Leonardo, in Isaacson's telling, is an enormously entertaining and engaging figure. But he's also—off to the side of Isaacson's narrative—a child abuser. 

In 1490, when Leonardo was 38, a 10 year old given the nickname Andrea Salai entered his household. Isaacson says he thinks the two didn't begin having sex until Salai was 15, but he doesn't really know. In any case, there's no question that Leonardo had a sexual relationship with a young boy who was his dependent. Consent in such a case would be impossible. Leonardo raped the child.

Leonardo apologists might argue that he was a man of his time. It's true that pedophilia between men and boys in Florence in the Renaissance was widely practiced. It was not precisely accepted though, and was in fact illegal. Leonardo himself was arrested for pedophilia earlier in his life, though as the son of a relatively prosperous man, he did not face any consequences. The authorities frowned on sex between men and boys in part because people then (like people now) were homopohobic. But they also didn't want men having sex with boys then because they knew then (as we know now) that sex with children is harmful to children.

Moreover, the measure of whether Leonardo harmed Salai is not whether Leonardo thought he was acting wrongly, nor whether people around Leonardo thought he was acting wrongly. The measure of whether Leonardo harmed Salai is whether Salai was traumatized or harmed. 

While the evidence is scarce, there is some indication from Isaacson's biography that Salai did in fact suffer ill effects. The name "Salai" is a nickname that means "Little Devil." Salai was "devilish" in temperament, and a "scamp" according to Isaacson. He stole money from Leonardo repeatedly; he also misbehaved at dinner parties, throwing food around and spilling wine. Leonardo treated all of this with amused condescension, and Isaacson mirrors his attitude. But children who steal and act out sometimes do so because they are unhappy. Maybe Salai wasn't a cute scamp. Maybe he was an abused, angry, and confused child.

Isaacson doesn't dwell on the ugly implications of Leonardo's relationship with Salai for obvious reasons. Leonardo is the hero of the biography; child sexual abuse is, to say the least, not heroic. And if you take the child sexual abuse seriously, it tends to overwhelm the rest of Leonardo's story. 

The fact that Leonardo was a procrastinator, or that he was sometimes peevish or paranoid—those are minor flaws that can be discussed by the way, without distracting from the main point of his genius. If Leonardo abused a child, though, that has to be, if not the main thing, at least a main thing. Nobody picks up a Leonardo biography to read about Salai. For that matter, we don't know much about Salai, who was not a famous painter. Centering his story is inconvenient and difficult. Best to hope he was 15 when the sexual relationship began, point out that pedophilia was common, and skirt the issue as best as possible.

That's a dynamic that still holds true today, as the #metoo movement has demonstrated. People have a lot of goodwill, and a lot of money, invested in powerful male artists, whether Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K., Kevin Spacey, or Dustin Hoffman. Sexual abuse accusations force people to choose. Either the artist's story is about the artist, and their work, or someone else is the hero of that story, and the artist's life and work needs to be seen as secondary. In order to fire Weinstein, you need to get to a place where you can acknowledge that Weinstein's triumphant story of making art is less important than the stories of the people he victimized.  

Weinstein has been accused by numerous victims. On the other hand, we don't know how Salai felt about his relationship with Leonardo; we don't know exactly what Leonardo did to him, or when. There isn't any way to rewrite a story that's 500 years old, or even to know whether it should be rewritten. Still, it's worth taking a moment to think about what Leonardo's life might look like if, somehow, Salai could do the telling. It's the one thing Isaacson, and perhaps Leonardo himself, weren't curious enough about.

Discussion
  • What do you think of an entire religion built on a prophet who had sex with a nine year old girl? Worse than da Vinci?

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  • I think that child sexual abuse is wrong, and that religious bigotry is also wrong.

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  • So you think a religion built on a sex offender is a bad thing, right? In other words, if someone built a religion on daVinci, which isn't that unreasonable, it would be a terrible religion, right?

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  • And "Muhammad, Abuser" would certainly be an acceptable headline, correct?

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  • Where does he say that there's something wrong w/ da Vinci's achievements?

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  • Nowhere.

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  • All right, making progress.

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  • How's that?

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  • Now just work on your passive-aggressive tendencies.

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  • Okay, I'll take that under advisement. Do you have an actual point to make on the topic at hand, or are you just going to ask me questions about things I never said and make cryptic suggestions about personal improvement based on something in your mind you haven't shared? You've piqued my curiosity with your aggression out of nowhere against comments that weren't directed at you.

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  • And he's talking.

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  • There are unpleasant things in most religious traditions. That doesn't mean the religion is evil, nor that it's followers are. Using a random post to push Islamophobia tells me about you, not about Islam.

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  • Alas, being tag teamed by a pair of Splice Today writers is less stimulating than one would hope for. One's a cipher, afraid to even make a clear point, the other an obfuscator trying to change the topic. The fact that you call child rape unpleasant has been noted. Like an ingrown toenail, maybe? Then I'd have to wonder why you wrote about daVinci doing it, if that's all it is. Why should anyone care when the guy gave the world so much? It was fairly normal at the time, although illegal, like gay sex has historically been.  You write that the artist was once arrested for pedophilia, which is a psychological condition. Did you perhaps mean child molestation? You really sound quite homophobic. Also why do you state that the followers of a religion aren't evil when nobody suggested they were? 

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  • If you don't find the convo interesting, you could always leave. I'm sure your comments would sound every bit as thoughtful and witty if you just repeated them to yourself rather than typing them on the screen.

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  • Do you think that Da Vinci isn't an abuser? Do you think it's wrong to talk about his history of abuse? Why do you think I'd object to an article about Muhammad's abusive relationships? What point do you think you're trying to make? it's not clear to me that you even know yourself.

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  • I'm a cipher!

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  • You're asking me questions after you invited me to leave, which isn't normally the way it works, but that's alright. I'll answer all your questions, even though you won't reciprocate. I don't know if Leonardo was an abuser by today's standards, but I certainly don't condone it if it happened. On the other hand, it's not something I'm overly concerned with, as it happened centuries ago, although I don't object to your writing about it, or the history of abuse. As I never said you'd object to an article on Muhammad's abuse, I cannot answer that question. One of the points I was trying to make was to see how much work it would take to get you to call me Islamophobic, which is a meaningless epithet. Not much, as it turned out, which was to be expected. Since you obviously care about children being abused, which is to your credit, I was curious about your thoughts on a religion built upon the word of a documented child rapist, but that didn't go over so well. It is not religious bigotry to question the pillars of any religion. They should all be closely scrutinized, which is something people who respond like you did are trying to make difficult by reflexively calling it Islamophobic.

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  • You're a modern day Voynich manuscript.

  • You're a living oxymoron -- a useless douchebag.

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  • "Islamophobia" Is a description of prejudice against Muslims, just as "anti-Semitic" is a description of prejudice against Jewish people. It's not useless or an epithet; it's a straightforward description of prejudice.

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  • You've already proven this answer wrong by your own response to my question. I asked you about the religion of Islam - what your thoughts were about the key figure Muhammad being a child rapist, which he is by your own definition. You said I was pushing Islamophobia, even though I'd said nothing about Muslims themselves. Simply from asking you about one of the pillars of that religion you called me an Islamophobe, and this is commonplace. You say it's a straightforward description of prejudice, yet you apply it to me simply because I ask your thoughts. Youre telling me that I can't even ask this most reasonable question.What question about the Torah could I ask you that would prompt you to call me an anti-Semite?? People are not called antisemites because they question any of the doctrines of Judaism, as you well know. They're called it when they dislike Jews simply for being Jewish, because they ascribe a certain set of stereotypical, negative traits to them. Anyway, nice try.

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  • If you asked what I thought about Judaism given the polygamy in the Old Testament, I would similarly point out that you are trafficking in anti-Semitism.// characterizing an entire religion as abusive or evil based on possibly apocryphal stories that don't necessarily have much to do with the practice of current practitioners is a way to stir up hate and justify prejudice. // Hijacking a comments thread in order to spread that hatred is similarly a sign of prejudice.

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  • Each year, a number of Israeli rabbis  give permission for dozens of Orthodox Jewish men to take a second wife, despite the fact that polygamy is illegal under state law, and you're telling me that simply asking you about this topic makes me an anti-Semite? That tells me all I need to know about you. There are plenty of Jews who ask similar questions so they must be anti-Semitic too. Self-loathing, is it? I know a number of Muslims who lost their faith over matters like they were taught since they were children that Muhammad married a six year old. They must be Islamophobic. You're afraid to discuss facts honestly, and are not worth having a serious discussion with.

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  • No, I didn't say asking about the topic makes you an anti Semite. I said bringing it up out of nowhere and implying that it said something about all Jews would make you an anti semite.// You're a troll and a jerk, and possibly a bigot. But you're established all that clearly enough already...

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  • First, pedophilia concerns sex with prepubescent children. Noah, stop accusing others of crimes if you don't even understand their definition. C.T., who pissed in your gin? Although we often disagree, you used to be a more rational and productive member of the Splice community. Lately, you seem to be spoiling for fights. I hope whatever is going wrong in your personal life greatly improves in this new year.

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  • Texan, you never fail to disappoint. "Let me leap into this conversation to parse definitions of pedophelia!" Fuck off, you ridiculous troll.

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  • Your words: "If you asked what I thought about Judaism given the polygamy in the Old Testament, I would similarly point out that you are trafficking in anti-Semitism." Then, your words: "I said bringing it up out of nowhere and implying that it said something about all Jews would make you an anti semite." Enough said. You even lie when your words are right in front of you and can be quoted. Now you'll talk out of the side of your mouth once again to "explain" yourself. This is embarrassing.

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  • Once again Noah, stop using words you don't understand. "Parse" refers to grammar, not word definition. Either learn english or write in a language you actually understand. Otherwise you'll keep coming off as an angry, ill-informed, pissant.

  • From Psychology Today: "Pedophilia is defined as an ongoing sexual attraction to pre-pubertal children." Definition of parse: "analyze (a sentence) into its parts and describe their syntactic roles." Definition of pederasty:"sexual activity involving a man and a boy." The writer conflates pedophilia with pederasty, and does not know the meaning of "to parse." Yet he plows ahead and calls everyone disputing him various names such as troll etc. He'd look better not responding at all to comments, but like Trump cannot help himself.

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  • Berlatsky's words:"Leonardo himself was arrested for pedophilia earlier in his life." This would suggest that the artist was arrested simply to being attracted to a prepubescent individual, which obviously never happened. This is a factual error.

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  • Berlatsky writes:"It’s true that pedophilia between men and boys in Florence in the Renaissance was widely practiced." Another false statement. Pederasty was widely practiced.

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  • At the top of Berlatsky's essay:"Leonardo may have sexually abused a young boy." In the middle of Berlatsky's essay:"Leonardo raped the child."

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  • Berlatsky's headline:"Leonardo da Vinci, Abuser." His subheader:"Leonardo may have sexually abused a young boy." He's an abuser who "may have" abused a child?

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  • Perhaps Berlatsky should change his first name to Salai

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  • What does that even mean, Texan? I should change my name because I'm an abused child? the only point there seems to be to make light of sexual abuse. Which seems gross, even for you. (I assume you just don't have any idea what you're saying.)

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  • What exactly are you two trying to do? I wrote a piece about how sexual abuse gets covered up, and how difficult it is to recover the accounts of people who have been abused. Instead of engaging with the essay, we get an endless burble of insults, insinuations, sneers...none of which is about the original point of the piece. It's almost like the two of you just come into comments to troll, act like assholes, and pat yourselves on the back for being unpleasant.

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  • Now you're the victim. How predictable.

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  • I'm not a victim. I just don't understand what you think you're doing. Not sure why that distinction is complicated...

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  • You wanted to get into it and it happened. Why complain? Do you think you're noble for standing up for someone who died five centuries ago? There are plenty of people alive now who are being victimized who need attention focused on them. Texan correctly explained that you misunderstood the meanings of two words and you attack him.Then you ask whats going on like you're the victim? You complain about all the insults when you're the one doing the insulting. Spare me. Try being more accurate and honest, and a little less ridiculously defensive and argumentative.

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  • These are your words: "characterizing an entire religion as abusive or evil ... is a way to stir up hate and justify prejudice." You are a liar, period. I never characterized the religion as abusive or evil, nor did I say one word about its adherents. Anyone who reads all my comments above can see exactly what I said. Professional bullshit artists/dissemblers like yourself shouldn't whine when the tables get turned on them. It's not dignified. As a practical matter, they should probably also confine their habitual lying to situations where they can't be so easily proven to be liars, like this one.

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