>>17838410
Da Vinci had several young boy proteges whom he used as his models (including in one sketch of Salai where an erect penis is drawn) and was anonymously accused of sodomy, though never charged. There are also some texts from the era poking fun at his alleged homosexuality. Michelangelo had deep emotional attachments to both men and women. Notably he became enamoured of a much younger man while in his middle age and wrote many ardent poems to him. This wasn't considered unseemly by his contemporaries, but after his death his nephew changed the sexual pronouns of the addressee in his poems from male to female. His art also focuses primarily on the beauty of the male form and sometimes when he sculpts women it seems like he just sculpts a man and then (very poorly) adds breasts - pic related. I would say Michelangelo, whatever his orientation, was nevertheless a chaste and very devout orthodox Catholic. People often say that the love poems written by Shakespeare and Michelangelo for other men are conventional for the time they lived in, but I've read a scholarly article that says this is kind of a baseless claim. They are actually unique.

It's impossible to know anything for certain, and there are definite cultural ambiguities that we must be aware of. Nevertheless I think the speculation is relatively reasonable. There are certainly cases where I think modern people misinterpret stuff that was ordinary for the day, like with Abraham Lincoln.