Portrait of Alessandro de' Medici, ca. 1535, by Jacopo Carucci Pontormo (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
Truth proves stranger than fiction in this tale from the Medici court of the 1530s. Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, nicknamed “the Moor of Florence” and rumored to be the bastard son of a Medici duke and a maidservant of African descent, rode into the city in 1531. Within a year he became its absolute ruler, facing down bloody family rivalries and hostility from the city’s oligarchs to reassert the Medici grip on the city-state. But only six years later, he was murdered by a cousin whose motives still remain a mystery.
Drawing on her new book, The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de’ Medici, historian Catherine Fletcher presents the story of a man and a family that is a never-ending source of fascination. Her retelling of Alessandro’s dramatic life, the first in more than 200 years, recovers his story from both the anti-Medici partisans of the 16th century and the “scientific racists” of the 19th. It offers a window into the little-known and often misunderstood histories of slavery and race in Renaissance Europe.
Fletcher, who teaches history at Swansea University in Wales, is the author of The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story and Diplomacy in Renaissance Rome.
The Black Prince of Florence is available for sale and signing following the program.
