Massimo Consoli was known as "the father of the Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 movement". Besides being an activist, he was also an anarchist and an historian. In 1998, the State Archive of Italy's Ministry of Culture acquired his extensive archive of Italian gay activist history.

He wrote more than 30 books, mostly on gay issues, including works on German authors Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

for the periodical directory, see Ulrich's Periodicals DirectoryKarl-Heinrich Ulrichs , is seen today as the pioneer of the modern gay rights movement.-Early life:...

 and Kurt Hiller

Kurt Hiller

Kurt Hiller also known as Keith Lurr and Klirr was a German essayist of high stylistic originality and a political journalist from a Jewish family. A socialist, he was deeply influenced by Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer, despising the philosophy of G. W. F...

. He was a close friend of American author and activist Vito Russo

Vito Russo

Vito Russo was an American LGBT activist, film historian and author who is best remembered as the author of the book The Celluloid Closet ....

 and Italian activist Mario Mieli

Mario Mieli

Mario Mieli was a leading figure in the Italian gay movement of the 1970s. He combined a radical theoretical perspective with a provocative public persona. His sometimes outrageous public behavior made him a controversial figure, but he was nonetheless respected as one of the movement's most...

.

Consoli died on November 4, 2007 of colon cancer.

External links

• Author's Website