same-sex marriages with one another is discovered in San Giovanni in Porta Latina basilica in Rome. Eight men are hanged and their bodies burned as a result. A later episode of same sex marriage involving clergymen is discovered in Naples. 17th century 1620s - Lesbian nun Benedetta Carlini, the abbess of the Convent of the Mother of God in Pescia, shares her cell with Sister Bartolomea. When the two nuns make love, Sister Benedetta experiences mystical visions and angelic possession. The ecclesiastic forces of the Counter-Reformation investigate her mystical experiences and, upon discovering her lesbian sexuality, strip her of her position as abbess and hold her under guard for the remainder of her life. 18th century 1755 - Gay art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann comes to Rome and spends the rest of his life in Italy, where he earns the admiration of his intellectual contemporaries such as Goethe and Herder for his masterful studies of ancient Roman art, replete with loving descriptions of the homoeroticism found therein. 1797 Giacomo Casanova writes in Histoire de ma vie about an ambassador, M. de Mocenigo and his lover, Manucci. 19th century 1805 - The Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of Naples, and the other French client states in Europe adopt the Napoleonic Code, under which homosexuality was not a crime. Upon the end of Napoleon and Joachim Murat's reigns and the restoration of preceding monarchies in 1815, the Napoleonic code was gradually abolished and homosexuality again became a crime. 1819- Poetic improviser Tommaso Sgricci, after enormous theatrical successes throughout Europe, arrives in Rome to be crowned poet laureate, but his award is withdrawn at the last moment, and he is expelled from the Papal States, allegedly because of his scandalous homosexual lifestyle. 1852- Lesbian actress Charlotte Cushman moves to Rome with writer Matilda Hays and helps to foster there a group of independent expatriate female artists, writers and sculptors, many of whom are lesbians or bisexuals. The group, dubbed The White Marmorean Flock by Henry James, included sculptors Edmonia Lewis, Emma Stebbins, Harriet Hosmer and Anne Whitney. 1859 - Kingdom of Sardinia's articles 420–425 of the penal code promulgated by Victor Emmanuel II, which punished homosexual acts between men (although not women). 1860 - Crossdressing warrior Giuseppa Bolognara Calcagno's action of heroism against the Bourbon cavalry earned her the Silver Medal of Military Valor. 1860 - Italy unified, resulting in sodomy laws