2011 The Philosophical Forum, Inc.

ANTONIO ROCCO: ALCIBIADES: FANCIULLO A SCOLA

The almost four centuries separating us from the first anonymous publication of
LAlcibiade, Fanciullo a Scola (Alcibiades, The Schoolboy) have not erased
or even soothed its controversial impact. What repelled audience and
institutionsthe book was banned by the Church and joined the list of censored
books on The Indexis not far from what is still today regarded as unacceptable.
The Alcibiade is a hymn to pederasty, specifically, to anal intercourse with
adolescent boys, but the hymn unfolds in a skilful blend of philosophymixing the
Symposium and Aristotles natural philosophylibertine rhetoric and carnal
descriptions.
We might be tempted, at first, to abandon the text, and also its author, the
Venetian clergyman, theologian, and philosopher Antonio Rocco, to his particular
obsessions. Indeed, curtailing publication and circulation of this text seems to
have been the common practice until the 20th century,1 and this partial translation
is the first English publication directly from the original Italian. Very few copies
were distributed in Europe, and those that did get read circulated almost exclu-
sively among the associations of libertines present in Venice and Paris of the 17th
century. Rocco himself did not sign the book, which was attributed either to Pietro
Aretino or to the less famous Ferrante Pallavicino, author of several obscene and
erotic novels. A fake location, Oranges, and a fake printer and publisher, Juann
Vvart, were also deliberately invented, and the very publication was initially only
meant to catch the attention of the Accademia degli Incogniti (the Academy of
those remaining in incognito), a cultured aristocratic Venetian group to which
Rocco belonged.

1
The 21st century may be less enlightened. A search for Alcibiades on Amazon.com yields the
message, This book is not available. Click if you wish to have this search removed from your search
history.

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By adding this text to an academic publication on libertinism, we take an

important step toward the preservation of the dense history of this libertine
subgenre. Here is an occasion to reflect on both its morality and genre. This is
likely to be considered a difficult artistic case, one of those instances in which it
is legitimate to ask whether an ethical interpretation should substitute, parallel, or
overcome a purely esthetic and autonomist reading of the text. But even an ethical
interpretation will be complex: If the teacher Filotimos will not have sex with the
pupil, Alcibiades, until he has persuaded him of its legitimacy, overcoming
detailed philosophical objections from his ward, does this not show that Rocco is
committed to free consent in sexual relations? We are not here in the position to
provide a detailed answer to such questions, but the following selection of pas-
sages should ignite some reflections on the topic.
Rocco was almost certainly a practicing pederast, and documents show his
inclination toward a philosophy praising physical lust and the appreciation of
physical beauty (where beauty is not associated with gender), and it might not be
entirely outlandish to see in this short book some autobiographical moments.
Rocco is, however, also a good philosopher or, more modestly, a philosopher
experienced in dialectic, rhetoric, and style. Rocco does not so much as praise
pederasty as explain and justify it by means of logic and philosophical references.
His style is Platonic, but his philosophy is more Aristotelian; his goal is to
disentangle what he takes to be the real essence of love, and this essence is carnal,
where carnal can only mean natural and natural almost necessary.
Rocco looks at heterosexual relationships as disgusting, messy, bloody; he fears
and despises women, and his efforts are lean the annihilation of the standard
sexual morality, a morality essentially imposed by Christian thought. It might be
worth asking whether he actually persuades us, and it is probably correct to say
that he does not. In fact, behind the dialectic, there is also an impressive degree
of parody, satire, wit. The serious, and at times tedious, face of philosophical
analysis often fades into gay self- mockery, irony. Filotimos is surely a Venetian
mask for Rocco, and Rocco is surely amused with himself. The self is, in this case,
an entire community; one that flourished in its intellectualism and esthetic finery
in the 17th century, and one that we today can reconsider in light of our temporal,
and yet not entirely emotional and social differences.
In translating the Alcibiade, and in including it in a collection dedicated to
the issue of libertinage, we hope to uncover these features, from the assonances
and consonances that result in the careful balance of philosophical erudition and
physical, carnal, and obviously sexual descriptions, to the idea that the Alcibi-
ades can be seen as a grand comedy of homoerotic justification, a comedy
designed simply to amuse the gay cognoscenti, even though writing and reading
such amusements risked the dreadful outcomes that those gay persons occasion-
ally had to bear.

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We see the two faces of an historical and cultural period: The libertines were a
threat to the austerity of a morality embedded in religion, but they knew they could
not have existed without it. Parody is built on oppositions, and on the right degree
of distance that needs to be achieved in order to make opposition meaningful,
pervasive, and certainly more funny than scandalous for those that decided to join
in. In a way, parody requires the same analytic capacity required by philosophy;
even if we do not share Roccos sexual focus, his satire is philosophical in nature.
This is one feature of the dialogue that everyone can enjoy today. Plato, I think,
would have loved it. (LTdS)

Rocco: To the Reader

My reader, philosophers in antiquity, for the purpose of teaching belle letters to
their disciples, proceeded by penetrating the holes of their buttocks with their
knowledge. And they assured them that in this way they were going to become
perfectly wise, because through their holes they were going to receive the virtue
of their masters.
Since the schools in the ancient world were so prodigal in such practices, we are
now reaping the highest possible results: teachers observe today the same prac-
tices the ancients used to follow. We have reached an end, I say, that might be
called a grotesque spectacle, a vulgar scene hosting all vices. And if you have
noticed this, you must have heard from many people how a teachers greed in thus
infusing his knowledge in his disciples has often torn their anuses.
Hence you will become aware, while reading of the education of Alcibiades,
how to perfectly prepare your disciples to knowledge, taking them away from
these teachers of Sodom. Go, and live happily.

To the Schoolmasters

Listen you revolting schoolmasters,

Who pump knowledge up through the ass
You do not do anything for aspiring students
But fill their anuses with your pleasures.

Wicked Pythagoreans, braggarts,

As you should be called, with your coarse
Manners, you stare at the curvy buttocks,
As if you did not have your fill of fucking vaginas.

As soon as you see a happy and tender boy,

Your dick speaks; so do your testicles,
And with these vile things, you penetrate the ass.

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You idle crowd, listen to the great master,

Who finally reveals your vile actions,
You idiots, Ill cut off your dicks!

The Publisher to the Kind Reader

I found this little book by chance, O reader, and I wanted to send it to you in
print, given that it seemed original to me, and worthy of your reading. From it you
will learn how to look after your children, to spare them the cruelty of such evil
and awful teachers, and today there are plenty of them.
I am promising to soon send you the second part, called The Triumph of
Alcibiades, that will be even more interesting, given that it is written by the wisest
writer in this country. It will very soon get to you. And give me your love.

Opening
Alcibiades, the boy, was at that age when nature, with amusing jokes, under
divine semblance, generates through lovely marvels confusion about the female
and male sex. Ganymede was this kind of young creature, when he had the
strength to bring Jove down from the sky, so as to let him kidnap him from the
earth. This is the interaction we see among men and gods, a never ending archive
of treasures, in which everyone can find the most desired of the loves pleasures.
The goal of love follows two orientations, one is the competition for longing
young women, the other is what the most erudite and wise men follow with
reverence and idolatry.
Of that nature was Alcibiades when, under the resolute advice of his tutors, he
was sent to school. Philotimos was elected among several others to the fortunate
position of his teacher. This man, of mature age, venerable in his aspect and
manners, used his position to forge works of the mind and of the senses. With
incomparable prudence and providence, he pleased himself; he knew how to
transform himself, and while he infused solid and profound doctrines into the
hearts of others, he showed his true intelligence through his actions.
The most important people of Athens wanted to commit to his faith, they gave
the dearest offers of their souls as offerings to his empire, those portraits painted
by nature, their incredibly delicate children. They were reassured by the experi-
ence of others and by the certainty of his fame. At that time there were no properly
instructed boys, unless they had drunk from the limpid source of this great man.
Alcibiades was sent to him, and by free gift he gained this masterly possession.
The beauty of all the other boys in the school, at the appearance of this new sun,
languished and lost their light and value, as the stars at sunrise. Not even Diana
made such a conspicuous and noble (appearance) among the sylvan nymphs, nor
did Ceres add such graceful splendor in the infernal realms, as he did then in the
school.

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With a delicate and flexible disposition he, at a regular and steady pace, proved
how his movements only result in the opening of hearts, so that he could take their
souls. His curly hair, combed like flowers, fell neatly on his shoulders; purple,
wind, and gold faded when compared to him. His eyes, enclosed in the shell of
eyelashes, appeared under the regal pavilion of the eyelids, encrusted with ivory
and rubies, of cerulean color, splendid in their proportionate size. Enormously
grateful, they threw more arrows of love to those who looked at them, than they
grasped the images of those they looked at. His regal, spacious forehead showed
the celestial serenity of the most beautiful spring sunrise. His cheeks of mercury
and milk, of round shape and full, smelling of plants and roses, surpassed the
delightful amenities of the gardens of Tempe. Living coral made those divine lips
red, a powerful magnet of love, so perfect in tint that they could attract the kisses
of inanimate statues, and these kisses would have given them life and a soul.
Oriental pearls, following the design of Doric architecture, shone in that divine
mouth, charmingly surrounding a tiny red tongue; they did not invite the bees to
collect and make honey, but they invited the gods of the supreme sky to get from
them the ambrosia of paradise, and to take from it the wax necessary for one of
their eternal fires, that make the stars vanish. The nose, went down along the
proportionate profile to the mouth, a precious ornament of the face, the completion
of true beauty, symbol of most pleasurable inner parts, and for this reason admi-
rable; almost mystical in the aspect, with nostrils inhaling at constructed and
delicate intervals, starting from the extreme part of the upper lip, the nose gave a
extraordinary dignity to his lofty grace. Nor was the candid neck surpassed when
compared to the other naked parts of his body; it was full, slightly round and of a
light pink, neither long nor tilted, crossed by vivacious veins, the perfect base for
the facial features above. The hands, matching the rest, slender, on the long side,
tender and with flexible fingers; they gave the impression of being able to gently
deal with the arms of love, even with the more mature and powerful instruments
of the battle. The remaining parts were covered by jealous garments, defeating
desirous glances. And yet, these garments excited a loving sense for the contem-
plation of secret parts, to be enjoyed more with actions than with the mind, and
they were thus rendered as beautiful as the rest. Each part of the body composed
a regular symmetry of correspondences: chest and forehead, buttocks and cheeks,
genitals and nose, the delightful garden and the mouth, chin and navel, feet and
hands, thighs and arms, the facial profile and the stomach, and his color and every
color [. . .].

Philotimos:
Alcibiades, my beloved son, you must forgive the ardor of your exquisite
master, do not inflict such pains to one who worships you and adores you. You
should not flee or abhor the one who has caressed you with words of deep and

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intimate confidence. These signs separate friends and foes: some you avoid and let
go, others you welcome and embrace. Love, shooting his arrows, does not discern
social condition, or age, or sex. Your divine looks, your portrait kept in the deepest
corners of my soul, has ultimately assumed human shape, and become the lord of
my afflicted heart. It holds its throne and governs, so that my soul, exiled from its
retreat, has taken shelter in you, and not distinguishing means from ends, works
lovingly with you, as it would work on itself.

Alcibiades:
And suddenly the boy took him tenderly by the arm. You would not dishonor
your confidantshe said to himI refuse to satisfy your desires, not because I
am unaware of your merits, or because I want you to suffer. I am not a famished
tiger, nor do I have a heart of stone, or a soul deprived of sensibility. But honesty
is prone to embarrassment, both law and nature are stopping me. Temper then your
ardors, make them more timid and discreet; take what legitimately and enthusi-
astically I am conceding to you: kisses, embraces, a still indifferent fondling, and
other small vices. I will with utter courtesy always concede these to you; but do
not think of anything further.

Alcibiades:
My will is not the cause of your pain, my most preferred master. That would
be so inhuman, vulgar, and unjust. There are other obvious reasons, more than
think I can overcome. I want to recall them one by one, so that you will not think
that I am lying.
The first, (and this I hear from well-regarded men, who in my home converse
with my family) is that this is a horrible and abominable vice of nature, and they
refer to it as against nature.
It is banned by our laws. Pallas, the greatest goddess of Athens, also abhors it;
and it was said that gods castigated cities stained by this defect with fire, sulphur
and brimstone, so that they were submerged and disappeared; and there still are
sulphurous lands, trees and fruits that look so innocent but made instead of cinders
and ashes, as the memory of the punishment of the Gods (4750).

Philotimos: [The natural is what nature inclines us to do.]

My duty is now to open and allow your mind to what is possible; I will proceed
in orderly manner to carefully inform you of everything. We shall then begin by
considering your arguments one by one.
The first, that this is an unnatural vice, is a ridiculous illusion brought about
and amplified by statesmen. Just because the asshole, the flower, is opposite to the
position of the womans cunt, this they call natural, whereas the use of the
opposite part unnatural. But do not believe that the desire for the cunt is more

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natural. They say this it is only because it gives birth to man, and the birth of man
is natural. But that this suave pleasure should not be called, nor is it, unnatural.
This is clearly shown by what laws of nature dictate to us.
Natural are those action toward which nature inclines us, from which we expect
an effect and a cause. If it is then a natural inclination to look at young beautiful
boys like you, how can it be unnatural? Nature itself does not do anything lazily
or in vain, it does not provide us with what cannot be fulfilled. Having given
beauty to boys who arouse the hearts and make us follow and revere them, how
can it leave the lovers hanging in such a state? Is this all for nothing? Mundane,
useless? No no, this is a delightful reaction, one adequate to its desire, and the
satisfaction of it ultimately tends toward the good.
Has not nature fostered love among those who are similar? Isnt there more
resemblance between a boy and a man than a male and a female? Isnt the fact that
boys have a girlish look, already an insight into converting one practice into the
other? Arent nature and its creations more valuable if they fulfill multiple pur-
poses? Why is the hand considered the queen of our bodily tools, if not for its
promptness at multiple tasks?
Why what which, commanded by different rules, can lead to such beatitude for
men, be reduced to one single and sordid usage? Why should this gentle part of the
body, honored with the shape of the sky, be confined to unworldly and humble
tasks? No no, that is just a condiment to make it even more tasty and desirable; this
is why cuts of that part in the animals we eat are considered more palatable.
The cunt is then there for urinating and procreation, should this other beautiful
flower, leaving to the cunt its prerogatives, be used only as a disgusting toilet?
Do you think nature is lacking any ability to foresee? Is nature blind to our own
good? Does she deprive us of such delicacies? Are we stealing against her will? If
nature gave us all this, all of it should be enjoyed to glorify her. Those who do not
accept her gifts are despising her; those who do not profit of her initiatives are
unnatural, and rebels deserving to be killed; she administers pleasure so that in
pleasure we praise her as a dear, florid, rich and courteous mother.

Philotimos: [Sex cannot be is intended just for reproduction.]

Alcibiades, my dear you do not yet understand. Various are the appetites of
men: the strongest of all and common to all living beings is to make and procreate
others of the same species, so that eternity, never granted to a single life, can be
accomplished in our common nature; such desire is thus enough as not to forget
women, so that they will not become slaves and the pleasure of Venus can still be
given to them.
But how? Are we always to take, or must we take the pleasures of love only as
a means to procreation? Are you supposed to have as many children as moments
of carnal pleasure? These are foolish assumptions, far from true sentiment and

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from what is just. Once a woman is impregnated, she has reached her goal; only
once she has become the mother of a man she is rescued from her vile and slavish
life and she acquires some quality.

Alcibiades:
If naturesaid Alcibiadesdoes not prohibit this usage, how is it possible
that in the animal kingdom, upon which she reigns even more purely, we do not
observe such behavior?

Philotimos:
Alcibiades, my gift, you are still a child. Tell me please: would you prepare the
same feast for a prince as you would for a common man? Certainly not. How can
you pretend that the brutes could be compared to man in the enjoyment of the
same pleasure? They are inferior in proportions, sensibility, and goals; obviously
they are also different in their practices. If they compete with men on this issue,
shouldnt they also compete with the rest and begin having cities, villas, houses,
arts, institutions, laws and tribunal? They would not be brutes, but a State of
rational animals.

Philotimos: [Alleged divine decrees are social conventions.]

The pure mind is worn out by the atrocities of punishment and by torments. The
reverence to God is a natural part in the heart of everyone, because he is the first
cause and eternal soul, essential for the whole creation, the essence of our being
and conservation, and through this he penetrates us with reverent understanding.
This is why, sometimes more sometimes less, always or frequently, he is always
the object of awe and fear.
It is on this argument that the wise legislators rely. In their laws, they sponsor
what are merely their caprices as if they were the desire of the gods, to whom
they give credit to their decrees. Their execution is prompt; they claim it
would be horrible to have another opinion; They had made us swallow this
doctrine with milk, they make it our food, a stable possession, enmeshed with
the soul.
It is especially this fact, their ostentatious pretense of Gods support, that reigns
safely over a dissonant, large and rebellious society. Solon, with savvy prudence,
reduced the normal effects of nature to the works God had foreseen; he included
them in his decrees, and made them an easy belief for his simple, idiotic, and
slavish people.

Philotimos: [Why no more Sodom and Gemorrahs?]

But if God is unchanging and the most knowledgeable in the works of justice
and mercy, how come He does not now punish what is considered a vice? Is He

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different from what He used to be? Did He change his mind? Does He perhaps fear
us? Or is He about to destroy the world, His very creation?
Clocks move because of the system of wheels and weights given them by the
watchmaker. Should the watchs ability to count the hours be regarded as a defect
of its artisan? Our inclinations are like those weights given us by God and Nature.
Those who do not follow them depart from their own principles, they go against
their master (5052).

Philotimos: [Why women should not philosophize.]

If Nature would have allowed everyone to have a speculative mind, the actions
of women, which have their roots in the senses, would be passed by. Add to this
that the diversity of intellect is the reason for different opinions and effects; those
few who are gifted with a philosophic mind fully understand these matters. They
would flee their marital chains, and, as you know, they would have to be sent back
to their Athenian homes with flaming torches, a symbol of the devastating fire of
the ruined house in which they enter.

Philotimos: [To seduce is not to subtract from the world.]

I will tell yousaid the master- God is great, infinite, incomparable, because
he gives being and conservation; and what is good and beautiful in the world can
be freely desired without being afraid of exhausting it (8384).

Philotimos: [The medicinal effects of semen.]

I will now explain to youanswered the masterthe way in which the human
brain, which has its location among the internal senses of the soul, has its initial
development in the external senses, for which it is excessively damp and cold, and
if nothing warms it, it will remain obtuse, unable of sensible cognition, and full of
unworldly excrements: this is why delicate scents, mild and warm, are forms of
great pleasure; but such an effect is miraculously achieved by the semen of an
intelligent and educated person, because the semen, stored in the lower parts of the
little bushes, in virtue of its natural warmth, lifts up to the brain well disposed
spirits, that actively prepare the brain to receive qualities almost identical to the
ones of the giver. And there is no other way but this one for the boy to equal his
master; I would not however fail to notice how eany mans semen can enhance the
development of the boys brain, given that all men are perfectly warm and
temperate, but it is better if it comes from someone who is noble and distin-
guished. (8485).

Philotimos Victorious:
And with these words, the enamored master, with sweet thrusts, kept enjoying
the delicate boy, who got to the point of not knowing what sweetness was without

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the dick of his master in his ass; and in no other way he believed he was going to
reach the same perfection of his master.
Lucky master, not only enslaved by such beauty but also able to enjoy it
according to his wishes.
But how their pleasures and loving encounters continued, you will more las-
civiously know in the second part of this book.

Translated by Laura T. di Summa

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