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th e li ves o f afri can s laves an d people of afri can descent i n renai ssance eu ro pe
children, and their smallness of stature makes them vulnerable and unimportant. However, these children were not necessarily slaves, although most of them probably were; sometimes whole black families of free people were lured to the courts to work, in order that suitably young and attractive black children could be available to serve.13 In group scenes involving both white and black people, black Africans often appear in very marginal or liminal positions, but once again this cannot be taken as an indication of legal rather than social status.
the lives of slaves Slavery in Europe was very much an urban phenomenon, and as a consequence, many slaves found themselves living as either the only slave
fig. 8 Chafariz d’el Rey in the Alfama District, no. 47. The Berardo Collection, Lisbon
or one of two or three in a household. Households were often composed of both slaves and differing types of servants. Only very occasionally would large groups of Africans have been able to congregate in a European city, but one site in Lisbon provided just such an opportunity. Lisbon had the greatest percentage of black people in Europe at this time, with perhaps 10 percent of the population being black.14 In an anonymous, late sixteenth-century painting of the Lisbon waterfront, a probably Netherlandish artist has depicted the great concentration of black people of all social and legal statuses, from slaves carrying water to petty criminals to knights, to be found around the Chafariz d’el Rey, the king’s water fountain (fig. 8, and no. 47).15 This genre scene is highly unusual, and in addition to providing valuable visual vignettes of Africans at work and at play,