1610: Pierre Canal, Geneva sodomite
Add comment February 2nd, 2019 Headsman
On this date in 1610* a Genevan official named Pierre Canal was twice capitally punished — broken on the wheel (for treason) and burned (for sodomy).
A longtime city official, as well as an Italian-educated doctor, Canal was progeny of city worthies. Although his own father was a hero of L’Escalade, Geneva’s successful defense against a 1602 attack on Geneva by the Duke of Savoy,** Canal was rounded up for alleged adherence to Savoy’s threatened (never executed) Escalade sequel in 1610.
Under torture for treason, he also copped to dozens of homosexual liaisons over many years, a behavior that he said he’d picked up in Italy.†
Canal’s roster of names named became fodder for a sodomy-hunt spasm in the ensuing months. At least three of his claimed lovers confessed under torture and were executed, and a fourth only survived because he managed to break jail. Others either withstood torture without admitting to an affair, or managed to confine their stipulated activities to non-capital versions of the perversions, such as oral sex without ejaculation. (The latter class ended up with punishments ranging from fines to banishment, but got to keep their limbs.)‡ Echoes of the affair continued in now-queer-vigilant Geneva in the form of several additional prosecutions running until 1623.
* Sources I’ve found are keenly divided between a February 2 and a February 3 execution.
The dispositive primary source, The Archives d’etat de Geneve Proces Criminels, does not appear to me to be digitized for the public, notwithstanding the canton’s exhibitions of a few choice artifacts. I’m going with the 2nd, gingerly, because the secondary sources that seem the most rigorous and credible (such as this Swiss historical dictionary and to me tend towards that date.
** The Escalade is the event commemorated in the Genevan “national” anthem “Cé qu’è l’ainô”.
† We’ve seen gay sex euphemized as le vice italien in the 19th century British navy, too.
‡ Canal named over 20 people, though not all were pursued. There are thirteen additional people named for prosecution by Judicial Tribunals in England and Europe, 1200-1700: Abel Benoit (20, soldier), Francois Felisat (24, carder), Pierre Gaudy (18, porter), George Plongon (25, Sieur Bellerive), Mathieu Berjon (36, printer), Antoine Artaut (30, carder), Jean Bedeville (23), Paul Berenger (23, tailor), Noelle Destelle (25, baker), Jean Maillet (61), Paul Andre (23), Claude Bodet (45, baker), Jean Buffet (23, tailor).
On this day..
- Feast Day of St. Apronian the Executioner - 2020
- 1715: Ann Wright, branded - 2018
- 1637: Tabaniyassi Mehmed Pasha, former Grand Vizier - 2017
- 1940: Mikhail Koltsov, Soviet journalist - 2016
- 1905: Elisabeth Wiese, the angel-maker of St. Pauli - 2015
- 1989: Vladimir Lulek, the last Czech executed - 2014
- 1708: Indian Sam and his female accomplice - 2013
- 1951: The first four of the Martinsville seven - 2012
- 1945: Carl Goerdeler, as penance for the German people - 2011
- Daily Double: 1945, and the legacy of Valkyrie - 2011
- 1461: Owen Tudor, sire of sires - 2010
- 1940: Vsevolod Meyerhold - 2009
- 1512: Hatuey, defied Spanish colonization - 2008
Entry Filed under: 17th Century,Broken on the Wheel,Burned,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Doctors,Execution,Gruesome Methods,History,Homosexuals,Politicians,Public Executions,Sex,Switzerland,Torture,Treason
Tags: 1610, 1610s, geneva, pierre canal, sodomy
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