Alessandro de Medici – “Il Moro”

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Do you like fairy tales?

Have you heard the one about the black slave girl living in the great house of a noble lord as a helper to his great lady?

Of how she slept with his younger 17 year old nephew and bore a bastard son?  Of how the 17 year old father would go onto become high priest and her son would become a great lord himself, whose descendants would marry into all of the great houses of the fairy land?

Meet Alessandro de Medici – first Duke of Florence and Grand Duke of Tuscany.  “Il Moro.”

Despite the many portraits of this 16th century Italian Renaissance figure, his African heritage is rarely, if ever, mentioned.   Down through the centuries, most scholars have accepted that Alessandro de’ Medici’s mother was a black slave woman and she was so identified by Alessandro’s contemporaries.  Lots of royals however, as well…

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