Black Africans in Renaissance Europe

Black Africans in Renaissance Europe

Leading experts from the disciplines of history, literature, art history and anthropology examine black African experiences and representations from slavery to black musicians and dancers, from real and symbolic Africans at court to the views of the Catholic Church, and from writers of African descent to Black African criminality. Their findings demonstrate the variety and complexity of black African life in fifteenth and sixteenth-century Europe, and how it was affected by Renaissance ideas and conditions. "This book's complex picture of black life across Europe makes it an important read not only for Renaissance scholars, but for all scholars of the early Atlantic world...a valuable book...." - H-Atlantic, Catherine Molineux, Vanderbilt University "...the quality of the individual contributions is uniformly excellent. Each piece is carefully researched from both manuscript and printed sources, and each is an original contribution to scholarship...the works gathered together in this fine volume are likely to be cited and quoted for some time to come." - The International Journal of African Historical Studies John Thornton Boston University "This excellent volume is a striking testament to what can be achieved in uncovering the black presence in Western Europe and serves as a stirring inpiration for future work." - Philip Morgan, Princeton University "the volume offers an array of insights into a subject that has long deserved more attention than it has received." Renaissance Quarterly Liz Horodowich, New Mexico State University "the collection is valuable for the excellent essays it does provide and especially for the insights into attitudes toward Otherness, especially that racial biasses are the product of one's particular social and political situation, and the discourses that are constructed around them."Mary C. Olson, Tuskagee University, Sixteenth Century Journal This book, first published in 2005, is an innovative account of black African experience and representation in Renaissance Europe. 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.