Zuan Bianco and Othello: The Afro-European Military Commander in Life and Art

Abstract

B URIED IN A FOOTNOTE IN THE 1869 SECOND EDITION of Jacob Burckhardt’s Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy lies one of most intriguing facets of the history of Black Africans in early modern Europe. A compulsive reader of (and compiler of notes from) Renaissance texts, Burckhardt had observed that a highranking Venetian military officer of Black African ancestry was briefly cited in one of the most important accounts of the battle between Charles VIII of France and his Italian enemies at Fornovo di Taro in July of 1495. What immediately jumped to Burckhardt’s mind, as it does to that of a modern reader, was a possible connection to Shakespeare’s Othello (1604). After the citation of his source, the only comment Burckhardt made was this: “ein Neger (Aethiops) als höherer venezianischer Offizier, wonach auch Othello als Neger gefasst werrden kann” (“a Negro [‘Ethiopian’] as a high Venetian officer, according to which Othello can be understood as a Negro”). This essay will outline what is known (and not known) of this commander, provide some context for understanding his appearance in the historical record, and evaluate whether his career might have played an indirect role in generating the Black African protagonist of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Burckhardt’s footnote has largely been left undisturbed by scholars since its publication, except (in another learned footnote) by the art historian Elfriede Knauer (1926–2010), who cited it in a 2003 essay in Apollo, which is how it came to my attention. Knauer referenced Burckhardt in conjunction with her discussion of the two Black African oarsmen in Vittore Carpaccio’s Hunting on the Lagoon (circa 1492–1494; figure 1), but did not offer any discussion of either Burckhardt’s brief speculation about Othello or the Renaissance source that had