Fifteen-century Florentine paintings regularly include black figures, almost always as men with low social status. InTheRise of the Black Magus in Western Art(1985), Paul Kaplan briefly considered the absence of African kings in fifteenth-century Central Italian representations of theAdoration of the Magi. Thistalkexplores a related question: why do Florentines begin to show blacks with dignity and importance at the end of the fifteenth century? In the 1490s, a half dozen paintings show Africans both prominently and in positive roles, as recent or future Christian converts.This hitherto unnoticed phenomenon must reflect the Florentines increased awareness of African Christians. The opening section considers the favourable status enjoyed by Ethiopian Christians,in light ofa new (and controversial) paradigm for how Europeans saw Africans in the Quattrocento. Thenext two sections considerAfrican figures inworks by Filippino Lippi, theAdoration of the Magi(Uffizi),and theMiracle of St Philip(Strozzi Chapel).
A Teaching Professor at Syracuse University Florence, Jonathan Nelson has published extensively on ItalianRenaissancepainting and sculpture. His books include The Patron’s Payoff: Economic Frameworks for Conspicuous Commissions in Renaissance Italy, with RichardZeckhauser(2008),andmonographic studies on Filippino Lippi, with Patrizia Zambrano (2004), Leonardo da Vinci (2007), and Plautilla Nelli (2000, 2008). Healso co-curatedRepresenting Infirmity: Diseased Bodies in Renaissance Italy (2020), andexhibition catalogs on Robert Mapplethorpe: Perfection in Form (2009), Botticelli and Filippino (2004), andVenus and Cupid: Michelangelo and the New Ideal of‵ܳٲ (2002). He is currently completing Filippino Lippi: Ingenuity and Invention (Reaktion Books) and co-editing “Bad Reception: Negative Reactions to Italian Renaissance Art” a special number of the Mitteilingendes KunsthistorischesInstitutin Florenz.He is co-editor of the ‘Elements of the Renaissance” series (Cambridge UP).
Organised by Dr Scott Nethersole (91Ӱ) and Dr Guido Rebecchini (91Ӱ).