Editing Isabella d'Este (section)

== Household slaves ==
Correspondence exchanged by Isabella documents the Renaissance European tendency to perceive black African slaves as exotic.<ref>Joaneath Spicer, "European Perceptions of Blackness as Reflected in the Visual Arts," Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe, (Baltimore: The Walters Art Museum, 2012)</ref> Isabella's pursuit of a black child as a servant is extensively documented.<ref>Alessandro Luzio and Rodolfo Renier, 'Buffoni, schiavi e nani alla corte dei Gonzaga ai tempi d'Esabella d'Este', Nuova Antologia, 19 (1891), pp. 112–46, 140–5.</ref> On 1 May 1491 Isabella asked Giorgio Brognolo, her agent in Venice, to procure a young black girl ('una moreta') between the ages of one-and-a-half and four, and twice in early June reminded him of the request, emphasizing that the girl should be 'as black as possible'.<ref>Paul H.D. Kaplan, "Isabella d'Este and black African women", Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)</ref> Isabella's household and financial records reflect that she already had a significantly older black girl in her service when she inquired after a younger black child. Records also reflect that she obtained a little black girl from a Venetian orphanage. She opened negotiations with a Venetian patrician household for the sale of a little black boy and purchased an enslaved little black girl from her sister.<ref>Kaplan, 153.</ref>