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.