{"id":48970,"date":"2016-09-04T22:11:04","date_gmt":"2016-09-04T22:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48970"},"modified":"2016-09-04T22:11:04","modified_gmt":"2016-09-04T22:11:04","slug":"a-look-at-historical-multiracial-families-through-the-house-of-medici","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48970","title":{"rendered":"A look at historical multiracial families through the House of Medici"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.oup.com\/2016\/09\/medici-family-multiracial\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>A look at historical multiracial families through the House of Medici<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.oup.com\" target=\"_blank\">OUPblog: Oxford University Press&#8217;s Academic Insights for the Thinking World<\/a><br \/>\n2016-09-04<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/catherinefletcher.info\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Catherine Fletcher<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Catherine Fletcher is author of <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=46206\" target=\"_blank\">The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de\u2019 Medici<\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/House_of_Medici\" target=\"_blank\">The Medici<\/a>, rulers of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Florence#Renaissance\" target=\"_blank\">Renaissance Florence<\/a>, are not the most obvious example of a multiracial family. They\u2019ve always been part of the historical canon of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Western_culture\" target=\"_blank\">western civilization<\/a>,\u201d the world of dead white men. Perhaps we should think again. A tradition dating back to the sixteenth century suggests that <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Alessandro_de%27_Medici,_Duke_of_Florence\" target=\"_blank\">Alessandro de\u2019 Medici<\/a>, an illegitimate child of the Florentine banking family who in 1532 became duke of Florence, was the son of an Afro-European woman. Sometimes called Simunetta, she may have been a slave in the household of his grandmother <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Alfonsina_Orsini\" target=\"_blank\">Alfonsina Orsini de\u2019 Medici<\/a>. The historical sources\u00a0are elusive, but by pursuing them we can learn much about the history of race.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s easy to get the impression that mixed-race families are a new phenomenon. Pew Research Center reported last year that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewsocialtrends.org\/2015\/06\/11\/multiracial-in-america\/\" target=\"_blank\">6.9% of US adults are multiracial<\/a>, and that the numbers are growing. In Britain the numbers are also growing, though smaller overall (2%) and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/peoplepopulationandcommunity\/birthsdeathsandmarriages\/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships\/articles\/whatdoesthe2011censustellusaboutinterethnicrelationships\/2014-07-03\" target=\"_blank\">one in 10 UK couples is of mixed ethnicity<\/a>.<sup>*<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>Historical and archaeological research, however, shows that mixed-race families have been around very much longer&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.oup.com\/2016\/09\/medici-family-multiracial\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A look at historical multiracial families through the House of Medici OUPblog: Oxford University Press&#8217;s Academic Insights for the Thinking World 2016-09-04 Catherine Fletcher Catherine Fletcher is author of The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de\u2019 Medici. The Medici, rulers of Renaissance Florence, are not the most obvious [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,28,459,8],"tags":[14795,24936,23309,23310,1797,18209,18208],"class_list":["post-48970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-europe","category-history","category-media-archive","tag-alessandro-de-medici","tag-alfonsina-orsini-de-medici","tag-catherine-fletcher","tag-florence","tag-italy","tag-oupblog","tag-oupblog-oxford-university-presss-academic-insights-for-the-thinking-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48971,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48970\/revisions\/48971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}