Uffizi masterpieces tell the story of black culture in Renaissance Europe

Historical, Biblical and mythological black figures are depicted in works such as portraits of the kings of Abyssinia and Ethiopia, painted in the sixteenth century by Cristofano dell’Altissimo for Cosimo I de’ Medici as part of a series of paintings dedicated to illustrious men of the time; Albrecht Dürer’s Adoration of the Magi, in which one of the three kings has unmistakably African features; the mythological tale with Perseus Freeing Andromeda, which Giorgio Vasari described as Piero di Cosimo’s best painting and sees a curly-haired Black musician in the foreground; and the trio of commoners painted by Justus Suttermans in his Madonna ‘Domenica delle Cascine’, la Cecca di Pratolino e Pietro Moro.