Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
This article contributes to the study of the early sub-Saharan African diaspora in Europe by analyzing both visual and documentary evidence relating to black gondoliers in Renaissance Venice. Gondolas and gondoliers were iconic features in fifteenth-century Venice, yet most gondoliers were not Venetian. Although black Africans were highly visible in a predominantly white society, naming practices and linguistic usages rendered them virtually invisible in the documentary sources. It is now possible not only to investigate representations of black gondoliers in paintings, but also to identify black gondoliers in the lists of gondoliers’ associations and in criminal records. Slavery was an accepted institution in late medieval Italy, and nearly all black Africans arrived in Venice as slaves, yet usually ended their lives free. Being a gondolier gave a few black Africans a niche occupation that allowed them to manage their transition to freedom, and to integrate successfully into Venetian society.
I should like to thank Michela Dal Borgo, Trevor Dean, and Dennis Romano for their help, and I am very grateful for the financial support of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the British Academy. Versions of this article have been given at Queen Mary, University of London; the University of Tasmania, Hobart; Villa La Pietra, New York University in Florence; Smith College; the Institució Milà i Fontanals (CISC) in Barcelona; and the Centro de História do Além-Mar (CHAM) at the Universidade Nova in Lisbon. All translations are the author’s except where otherwise noted.