Film Screening Gives Students Deeper Understanding of Notable African Figure in Italian History

As part of Black History Month, Il Moro (The Moor), a short film about the untold story of Alessandro de’ Medici, was screened for students in the Black Europe and Emergence of Global Society courses class taught by Jessica L. Harris, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of History. de’ Medici was the first Duke of Florence, Italy, and the first figure of African descent to become a head of state in Renaissance Europe.

The film was directed by Daphne Di Cinto, an Afro-Italian screenwriter, director, and actor. An alumna of The Actors Studio Drama School in New York, she was notably part of the cast of Bridgerton, a Netflix-produced romance television series. 

Ms. Di Cinto attended virtually and participated in a question-and-answer session with students following the screening, which was sponsored by the Department of English, Department of History, Institute for Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, and the Africana Studies interdisciplinary minor.

“It was fantastic to share Daphne’s wonderful film and Alessandro’s story with the St. John’s community,” Dr. Harris said.

Ms. Di Cinto said that while she was nominally aware of Alessandro de’ Medici, her curiosity about him was piqued after reading an online article, “Ten People You Didn’t Know Were Black.” 

She began an intense period of research that led to the film’s creation. “I ended up getting really passionate about this story beyond the fact of Alessandro’s background,” Ms. Di Cinto explained. “His background is one of the main aspects that pulled me into this story, but then I discovered an incredibly rich and dramatic series of events that compose his life. The more I read, the more I wanted to know, and the more I had questions about who this person was.”

Konrad Tuchscherer, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History and Director of External Scholarships and Fellowships, called Il Moro, “excellent and provocative.” 

History major Malika Zaman said, “It was a great film. I loved how the actors were accurately portrayed and how it wasn’t just about Alessandro,” but his larger family. She added, “I really think movies like Il Moro are important because they remind us of our forgotten histories and reveal that we've always been a complex and diverse world.”

Ms. Di Cinto noted that in 16th-century Florence there were many people of African descent who were not enslaved, and it was important to feature that in the film. She said she made the film “because I did not want another generation to go throughout their entire education without knowing that in their history, there are people that look like them—because that was me. I was in primary school thinking that the only chapter of history that talked to people who look like me was the transatlantic slave trade.” 

She added, “Alessandro was the first person of African descent I came across in Italian history, but there are so many starting from the Roman Empire.”

She has been the target of detractors who do not want to concede that people of African descent played an essential part in European history.

Philip Misevich, Ph.D. ’02C, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of History, called Il Moro “a beautiful film,” and noted how reflective the students who viewed it were about its creation and the backlash that Ms. Di Cinto has received online for her portrayal of Alessandro de’ Medici.