The Pairing

There is perhaps nothing as true, as enduring, as fitting a tribute to the Renaissance as being so horny you could die on the streets of Florence.

Filippo Lippi was a Carmelite monk when he fell for the nun who sat for his paintings of the Madonna. Botticelli yearned so passionately for his muse, Simonetta, that he painted her as Venus ten years after her death. Donatello was almost certainly unlacing his doppietto for Brunelleschi. Da Vinci wanted to hate-fuck Michelangelo, while Michelangelo was so obsessed with the young Tommaso Cavalieri that he sculpted himself in submission between the nude lord’s legs and called it Victory. Raphael essentially died of exhaustion from too much painting and fucking.

And I, I am standing on the black stones outside a caffetteria, watching Theo eat pastry.

They’re wearing those tan work pants, the ones that make them look like they spend all day working a steam-powered letterpress. Their shirt tugs at the broadest points of their shoulders and nips in at the waist. As they bite off the corner of a cornetto, their brows go down and then up, from investigative to pleased.