Since his death more than 500 years ago, multihyphenate genius Leonardo da Vinci and his spectacular works have inspired respect and wonder in generation after generation the world over. An icon of the Renaissance, an inventor so ahead of his time that it’s taken centuries for many of his ideas to come to fruition, and the painter of some of the most stirring and famous works of art on the planet, Leonardo has also become a hero for LGBTQ people, who’ve long seen in his works and biography a host of beguiling clues to his queerness.
Yet non-Italians are often surprised to learn that it was Milan, not Florence, where Leonardo spent the bulk of his profusely productive professional life, and where one of his most recognizable works, “The Last Supper,” still graces the wall of the convent dining room where he painted it at the end of the 15th century. Milan is also where he met Gian Giacomo Caprotti, more commonly known as Salaì, the young male assistant and pupil who many historians believe also became his longest-term lover.
This week, as Milan plays host to the annual global convention for IGLTA, the International LGBTQ+ Travel Association, Italian tour operator Quiiky will be offering queer-themed Leonardo tours of the city, as it first began doing in 2017. The Milan IGLTA convention is a full-circle moment for the northern Italian city — originally slated for May 2020, the conference was rescheduled after Milan tragically became one of the world’s first major Covid hot spots early that year, just months after it had triumphantly completed in 2019 celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the master’s passing.
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