6. Little Black Giovanni’s Dream: Black Authorship and the ‘Turks, and Dwarves, the Bad Christians’ of the Medici Court

This chapter provides a close reading and English translation of the one surviving poem by the enslaved, black, possibly castrated chamber singer, Giovanni Buonaccorsi, who was active at the Medici court from at least 1651 until his death in 1674. I argue that the poem was written by Buonaccorsi, that performances were sung, and that in the text Buonaccorsi makes an important claim to community among the ‘Turks, and Dwarves, the bad Christians’ who lived in the court. Several individuals mocked in the poem are matched up with historical persons who were present at the Medici court in the early 1650s.