Lex Anteinternet: Slavery in Renaissance Italy

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Slavery in Renaissance Italy

Up until today, I was unaware that there was slavery in Renaissance Italy, Italy of course being a region at the time, not a nation state.

There was.

Somebody has come out with a theory that Leonardo da Vinci's mother, about whom nothing is really know, was a Circassian slave. I don't know about that, and it's probably impossible to prove. The evidence for it is, frankly, in my view extraordinarily weak and completely circumstantial, but that there were slaves held in Italy at that point in time was a surprise to me.

Which probably means that there's more here to be surprised about. Where else in Renaissance Europe was slavery practiced?

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Lex Anteinternet?

This blog has been around since 2009. In the very first post, we asked the question: "What the heck is this blog about?"

Our answer to the question was: "The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?"

We also noted: "Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book."

All of this is still true, but the focus of the blog has changed somewhat. It now focuses on the era from 1890 to 1920 in general, rather than on the law and lawyers specifically, although that may be far from obvious. It's also become the location where we comment on anything we feel moved to comment on.

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