revealing-the-african-presence-in-renaissance-europe

fig. 19 “To Wash an Ethiopian” (Aethiopem Lavare),from Geffrey Whitney, A Choice of Emblemes, and otherDevises (Leiden, 1586). Rare Book & Manuscript Library,University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (emblems096.1W613c1586, p. 57)with more than a hundred later editions andtranslations in Italian, English, Spanish, French,and Dutch).38 Kim Hall has rightly called this“perhaps the dominant troping of blackness inthe period.”39 The emblem (motto, epigram, andsymbolic image) of “Impossible [Effort]” followedby the epigram in Latin: “Why are you vainly washingan Ethiopian? Give up. No one can light up thedarkness of black night” was illustrated from 1536with images of white men washing a semi-cladblack man as in the 1548 edition (no. 33) and inan English adaptation of 1586 (fig. 19). Some editions,as one of 1558, add a line: “Vices that arenatural to the man, whether physical or spiritual,cannot be eradicated.” The underlying inferenceis that even though one knows that the man’sblack color is permanent, he appears discolored(especially if the discoloration is associated withnatural vice), and therefore it would be reasonableto want to whiten him. Adding an illustrationdraws attention to the man’s blackness and slackbody language. The implication is that no freeman would suffer this humiliating treatment; hispassivity in the face of assault conveys that he isa slave, a thing to be manhandled and lacking innatural virtue. In Diego Ximénez de Enciso’s playThe Famous Drama of Juan Latino the sense thatblack skin is discolored comes out poignantly inthe frequent passages in which the protagonistfeels that he must apologize for his “uncouth”body or “sooty” skin.40Disregard on the basis of color underlies Renaissancerenderings of “the miracle of the black leg,”performed by Sts. Cosmas and Damian. The storycan be illustrated through the predella panels ofan Italian painting of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, ofaround 1370 (no. 35), the earliest extant. Accordingto The Golden Legend, the influential fourteenthcenturybook of saints’ lives by Jacobus da Voragine,the brothers were third-century Christianphysicians, martyred for their faith. In the sixthcentury, a devotee in Rome of the saints developedan ulcerous leg, and in his sleep Cosmas andDamian came to his aid. They decided to replacethe leg by digging up the body of an Ethiopian whohad been buried that day and cutting off the deadman’s leg to replace that of their devotee. Whenthe sick man awoke, he was astonished to discovera new, sound, black leg. In the companion panelthe brothers are martyred by beheading ca. 287by Roman soldiers carrying shields emblazonedwith heads of fierce Africans. Since the Romanmilitary used no such emblem, this usage is mostlikely intended to suggest the pagan ferocity ofpre-Christian Rome.Why does the legend specify an Ethiopian? Therewere few blacks in Rome in the sixth century, andthere were surely recently deceased white people.However, it was not acceptable to desecrate thebody of a dead Christian. Most likely “Ethiopian”(with no modifier) was used simply to indicate theman’s color, in which case the reader was probablyto infer that he was a slave. Slaves were generallythought to have no souls, so desecration was not44