The black presence in Italy dates back to the Roman empire. Over time, Rome developed trading networks across Northern Africa, and oftentimes, Egypt was the gateway for transporting African products such as wood, ivory, spices, animals and enslaved people.
There have been several Roman emperors of African origin, including the militaristic Septimius Severus who was born in modern-day Libya, and his son Caracalla who ruled after his father’s death.
After the Roman empire came to an end, the black presence in Italy was less frequently documented. Unlike several other major European powers, Italy did not participate in a significant way in the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Italy was in some ways involved however, by proxy of other slave-trading European powers. In 1440 the Portuguese opened a trading route between Mediterranean Europe and the West coast of Africa, and the port cities of Genoa and Venice became slave trading ports.
There is, therefore, evidence of a black presence in Italy through the centuries. One prominent example of a prominent Afro-Italian from history is Benedict the Moor who in 1807 became the first black canonical saint. Born in Sicily, Benedict went on to join a Franciscan Friary in Palermo where he rose up the ranks to Guardian of the Community. He died aged sixty-five in 1589 in Sicily and became the patron of the city Palermo.
Another notable 16th century Afro-Italian is Alessandro de Medici, who was the first duke of Florence and by some accounts, the first Afrodescedant head of State in the modern Western world. He was born in 1510 to an enslaved woman of African descent and a nobleman from the Medici family, a powerful family of merchants and bankers in Florence. After much political conflict, the new Florentine Constitution was declared in 1532 and Alessandro was made the hereditary Duke of Florence. He ruled until 1537 when he was assassinated by his cousin and rival Lorenzino de Medici.
Fast forward in history and it’s worth mentioning that over the 19th and 20th century, Italy was visited by several prominent African-American writers, artists, actors and activists including Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Langston Hughes and Mary Church Terrel.
A major milestone in Italy’s black history was the ‘Scramble for Africa’, a period of rapid colonial invasion and expansion in Africa by various European powers. Italy also participated, and from 1890 to the 1940’s, Italy had colonial territories in Africa, namely the present-day countries of Libya, Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia. However, the events of the Second World War took their toll, and Italy relinquished control of its African colonial territories from 1941 to 1947.
Today, digital platforms like Nappytalia and AfroItalian Souls unite and celebrate the African diaspora in Italy.