Black Africans in Renaissance Europe

This book, first published in 2005, opens up the much neglected area of the black African presence in Western Europe during the Renaissance. Covering history, literature, art history and anthropology, it investigates a whole range of black African experience and representation across Renaissance Europe, from various types of slavery to black musicians and dancers, from real and symbolic Africans at court to the view of the Catholic Church, and from writers of African descent to black African 'criminality'. The main purpose of the collection is to show the variety and complexity of black African life in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe, and how it was affected by firmly held preconceptions relating to the African continent and its inhabitants. Of enormous importance for both European and American history, this book mixes empirical material and theoretical approaches, and addresses such issues as stereotypes, changing black African identity, and cultural representation in art and literature.

Introduction: the black African presence in Renaissance Europe Kate Lowe; Part I. Conceptualising Black Africans: 1. The stereotyping of black Africans in Renaissance Europe Kate Lowe; 2. The image of Africa and the iconography of lip-plated Africans in Pierre Desceliers's World Map of 1550 Jean Michel Massing; 3. Black Africans in Renaissance Spanish literature Jeremy Lawrance; 4. Washing the Ethiopian white: conceptualising black skin in Renaissance England Anu Korhonen; 5. Black Africans in Portugal during Cleynaerts's visit (1533–8) Jorge Fonseca; Part II. Real and Symbolic Black Africans at Court: 6. Isabella d'Este and black African women Paul H. D. Kaplan; 7. Images of empire: slaves in the Lisbon household and court of Catherine of Austria Annemarie Jordan; 8. Christoph Jamnitzer's 'Moor's Head': a late Renaissance drinking vessel Lorenz Seelig; Part III. The Practicalities of Enslavement and Emancipation: 9. The trade in black African slaves in fifteenth-century Florence Sergio Tognetti; 10. 'La Casa dels Negres': black African solidarity in late medieval Valencia Debra Blumenthal; 11. Free and freed black Africans in Granada in the time of the Spanish Renaissance Aurelia Martín Casares; 12. Black African slaves and freedmen in Portugal during the Renaissance: creating a new pattern of reality Didier Lahon; 13. The Catholic Church and the pastoral care of black Africans in Renaissance Italy Nelson H. Minnich; Part IV. Black Africans with European Identities and Profiles: 14. Race and rulership: Alessandro de' Medici, first Medici duke of Florence, 1529–37 John K. Brackett; 15. Juan Latino and his racial difference Baltasar Fra-Molinero; 16. Black Africans versus Jews: religious and racial tension in a Portuguese saint's play T. F. Earle; Bibliography; Index.

This highly original book explores the whole range of black African experience and representation across Renaissance Europe. It offers an interdisciplinary guide to the variety and complexity of black African life in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe, and how it was affected by Renaissance ideas and conditions.

T. F. Earle is King John II Professor of Portuguese Studies at the University of Oxford.
K. J. P. Lowe is Professor of Renaissance History and Culture at Queen Mary, University of London.