5. Juan Latino (Johannes Latinus). On the Birth of His Serene Highness Prince Ferdinand

There are no surviving portraits of Juan Latino. For an exhibit titled “Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe” at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, the curator, Joaneath Spicer, movingly installed an empty picture frame.

Like most people, I suppose, I first learned about the existence of a black Renaissance Latin scholar from the opening of Don Quixote, where the Commendatory Verses by “Urganda the Unknown” (who’s popping in for a visit from Adamis of Gaul) make mention of him:

Since Heaven it hath not pleased on thee

Deep erudition to bestow,

Or black Latino’s gift of tongues,

No Latin let thy pages show.

(Pues al cielo no le plugo

que saliese tan ladino

como el negro Juan Latino

hablar latines rehúye.

-Ormsby’s translation)

The verses are in a form, freakishly popular in Cervantes’ age, called cabo roto, where the final syllable of each line is left off and the reader has to fill it in by the rhyme.

There’s still a lot of misinformation about Juan Latino swirling about. The most scholarly brief discussion is by J. Mira Seo in Dictionary of African Biography. ed. Emmanuel K. Akyeampong and Henry Louis Gates. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012:

Latino, Juan (1518–c. 1594/1596),
professor and poet of Latin verse, was born in the household of Don Luiz Fernández de Córdoba, the Count of Cabra, in Baena, Spain, to African parents enslaved in Guinea. Though some sources suggest that Latino was born in Guinea, his privileged status within the household and the brutality of the Portuguese slave trade from West Africa make it unlikely that he could have been born in Africa. From his earliest years, Juan was raised and educated with the Count’s son, Don Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the Duke of Sessa (d. 1578); Juan de Sessa, as he was known in his youth, continued his studies in Granada where the family had moved in 1530 after the death of the Count of Cabra. On 4 February 1546, “Joannes Latino” graduated as a bachillerado, or bachelor of the arts, from the University of Granada while still a slave.
It is unknown exactly when Latino gained his freedom from the Duke of Sessa; it appears he was still attached to the household and engaged in giving lessons in 1547 or 1548 when he became engaged to Ana Carlobal (d. 1576), the daughter of a nobleman, the Licenciado Carlobal, the Duke’s gobernador or manager of estates. In a dramatized version of their courtship in La Comedia Famosa de Juan Latino (The Well-Known Comedy of Juan Latino, 1652) by the playwright Ximénez de Enciso, the initial opposition to their union was overcome when the Duke of Sessa offered his blessing and Latino’s freedom; his emancipation must have occurred sometime before the marriage. The couple had four children, whose baptisms were recorded in the registry of their local church of Santa Ana: Juana (30 June 1549), Bernardino (4 April 1552), Ana (22 July 1556), and Juan (5 March 1559). In 1556, Latino was appointed by the Archbishop of Granada, Pedro Guerrero (1546–1576), to a teaching position, the chair of Grammar, in the Cathedral of Santa Iglesia. In his epitaph, Latino describes himself as doctor iuventae, a “teacher of the young”; he taught Latin poetry and possibly some Greek. On 31 November 1556, Latino was granted the Licenciatura, which enrolled him among the claustro or faculty of the University, an affiliation that lasted until his death. On 16 October 1565, Latino was chosen to deliver a Latin oration inaugurating the academic year in a ceremony attended by all the leading citizens of the city.
    Latino was well connected with Granada’s élite in all areas, including the noted diplomat and bibliophile Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1503–1575), and his ecclesiastical patron, the Archbishop Pedro Guerrero. Through his childhood friend and former master, the Duke of Sessa, Latino forged a precious contact with the Spanish royal family. Don Juan of Austria (1547–1578), the illegitimate son of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and younger half-brother of the Spanish king, Philip II, arrived in Granada on 13 April 1569 with a garrison of mercenaries. The Moriscos, Christian converts from among the Muslim inhabitants of al-Andalus (former Islamic Spain), had erupted in revolt and taken to the hills outside of Granada in protest against the Inquisition’s heightened enforcement of the Spanish crown’s decrees against Morisco cultural practices. The Duke of Sessa served as Don Juan of Austria’s second-in-command in the campaign against the Morisco guerrillas (the War of the Alpujarras, 1569–1570), and seems to have introduced Latino to the royal commander, as Latino records in an elegy to King Philip from 1573: “Didn’t Austriades, forcing from the land a wicked people, / Catch sight of his own bard at Granada?”
    This prestigious royal connection enabled Latino to obtain permission from the Spanish crown to publish two collections of Latin verse, which are still extant: the Ad Catholicum (complete title: Ad Catholicum pariter et invictissimum Philippum dei gratia hispaniarum Regem, de foelicissima serenissimi Ferdinandi Principis navitate, epigrammatum liber, or “To the Catholic and most invincible Philip, by the grace of God King of Spain, on the most blessed birth of his most serene Prince Ferdinand, a book of epigrams,” 1573) and the De Translatione (complete title: De augusta et catholica regalium corporum translatione per Catholicum Philippum, or “On the magnificent and Catholic transfer of the royal remains by Catholic Philip,” 1576). A third work, a memorial to his late patron, the Duke of Sessa, has been lost: Ad excellentissimum et invictissimum D.Gonzalum Ferdinandez a Corduba (“To the most noble and most invincible Don Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba,” 1585).
    The two extant collections of poetry demonstrate Latino’s mastery of Latin verse in a variety of meters, and represent his intellectual legacy. In these works, Latino displays his political savvy by addressing a constellation of patrons, from King Philip II of Spain and Pope Pius V (1504–1572), to local political leaders, such as Pedro de Deza (1520–1600), the Inquisition’s highest official in Granada and president of the city’s council. The Ad Catholicum (1573) contains a collection of epigrams in elegiac couplets on the birth of King Philip’s son, Prince Ferdinand (1571–1578); poems on the Pope’s concern for Philip; and a two-book epic in hexameter verse entitled the Austriad, on the Holy League’s naval victory over the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto (7 October 1571). This signal event had great significance for the Spanish monarchy and the Catholic church, who capitalized on its propaganda value to counteract Martin Luther and the Reformation’s growing opposition to the Roman Catholic Church’s authority. Latino shrewdly places Don Juan of Austria, the victorious admiral of the Holy League, at the center of his eponymous epic. The De Translatione (1576) presents epigrams celebrating a local event of imperial significance: Philip’s transferral of his ancestors’ remains from Granada to a new mausoleum in El Escorial. As the Spanish crown’s attention turned from Granada, the former frontier against Islamic Spain, Philip’s new monastery and palace complex at El Escorial near Madrid became the dynastic symbol of moment.
    In addition to reflecting the political and propagandistic concerns of his royal patrons, Latino also includes precious autobiographical details in his elegies, indicating his skillful negotiation of race and religion. In Latino’s poetry, his black skin and African origins authorize his words; as an Aethiops, an Ethiopian, Latino traces his heritage back to the biblical queen Candace (Acts 8:26–40), ruler of the earliest Christian kingdom. This “Ethiopian” ethnicity also provides Latino with a classical inheritance that justifies his own accomplishments in Latin verse and the classical tradition. Latino’s African origins provided a unique basis for his subtle political and intellectual self-positioning in post-Reconquista Granada and beyond. Juan Latino died in Granada between 1594 and 1596, and was buried with a Latin epitaph (no longer legible) in his parish church of Santa Ana.
 Bibliography
Fra Molinero, B. “Juan Latino and His Racial Difference.” In Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, edited by T. F. Earle and K. J. P. Lowe, pp. 326–444. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. An analysis of Latino’s racial self-presentation in the Ad Catholicum, one of the few literary studies of Latino’s poetry, but it anachronistically applies contemporary racial identity theories.
Gates H. L. and M. Wolff. “An Overview of Sources on the Life and Work of Juan Latino, the ‘Ethiopian Humanist.’” Research in African Literatures 29.4 (1998): 14–51. One of the most comprehensive accounts of Latino’s biography and his significance to black intellectual history in English, but with little analysis of Latino’s poetry.
Masó C. Gloria de España e de su raza. Chicago, 1973. Largely derivative of Marin Ocete, but more readily accessible.
Sánchez J. N. and M. E. Santos Flores [http://www.juanalfonsodebaena.org/baena/personajes/juan-latino; N.B. the website address has changed since publication].“El negro Juan Latino: Gloria de España y de su raza.” A helpful summary of the literature since Gates and Wolff, but little new material and some inaccuracies.

To these, now add:

Ivory, Annette. 1979. “Juan Latino: The Struggle of Blacks, Jews, and Moors in Golden Age Spain,” Hispania 62: 613-618

Mira Seo, J. 2011. “Identifying Authority: Juan Latino, an African Ex-Slave, Professor, and Poet in Sixteenth-Century Granada,” in African Athena: New Agendas, ed. Daniel Orrells, Gurminder K. Bhambra, and Tessa Roynon. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 258-76.

Spratlin, Valaurez Burwell. 1938.  Juan Latino, Slave and Humanist. New York: Spinner Press. A copy online at the Hathi Trust: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001182320

Wright Elizabeth R. 2009. “Narrating the Ineffable Lepanto: The Austrias Carmen of Joannes Latinus (Juan Latino),” Hispanic Review 77: 71-91. A brilliant article.

For this remarkable scholar and poet, I’ve chosen his poem of 1571 on the birth of King Philip’s son, Prince Ferdinand, who would live for only seven years. It functions in part as a proem and advertisement for his epic on Lepanto. In this poem he deals directly with race, including a early example of cultural relativism. He offers a very interesting argument for accepting black people as fully human based on literacy. He also offers himself as a new Ethiopian to a new Philip, and cleverly (if somewhat disturbingly to the modern sensibility) offers himself as a exotic acquisition for Philip’s royal cabinet of curiosities.

One cool feature of the printed edition is that it comes with its own paratext (paratexts are very hot right now), telling you what each bit means.

Source: Ad Catholicum, f. 9v-11r.

A copy of the entire book is on Google Books.

A copy, with a lot of attached misinformation, could have been yours for $40,00-60,000 from Swann Auction Galleries.

         De Natali Serenissimi Principis Ferdinandi

Autorem res magna petit, nascique poeta

     Debuerat fratri, Summe Philippe, tuo.

Unicus est victor, scriptorem quaeritat unum,

     Res nova vult vatem Regibus esse novum.

Auribus, alme, tuis non haec victoria ponto est        5

     Audita, hic scriptor nec fuit orbe satus

Aethiopum terris venit qui gesta Latinus

     Austriadae mira carminis arte canat.

Is genibus flexis orat te, invicte Philippe,

     Cantator fratris possit ut esse tui.                        10

Nam si nobilitant Austridae bella poetam,

     Phoenicem Austriadam, quod niger, ille facit,

Terribilis classis gentes motura Philippi

     Orbi portentum tunc erit Austriades.

Prodigiosa viros turbabit fama poetae                      15

     Volventes fastis haec monumenta tuis.

Aurora hunc peperit Reges Arabumque beatos

     Primitias gentum quos dedit illa Deo.

Quod si nostra tuis facies, Rex, nigra ministris

     Displicet, Aethiopum non placet alba viris.           20

Illic Auroram sordet qui viserit albus,

     Suntque duces nigri, rex quoque fuscus adest.

Candace Regina genus nigrumque ministrum

     Vel curru Christo miserat illa suum.

Legerat ille genus non enarrabile Christi                   25

     Austriadae pugnas non canet iste tui?

Obvius Aethiopem Christum docet ore Philippus,

     Discipulum Christus mittit ad Aethiopem,

Non temere Aethiopi coelo datus ergo Philippus.

     Ne Aethiopi iusta haec forte Philippe neges.         30

Quid quod et Austriades exactor gentis iniquae

     Garnatae vatem viderat esse suum,

Et dixit: «Fratri narrabo mira Philippo

     De te, qui scriptor diceris esse novus.

Consuevere pii reges miranda tenere                       35

     Aulis, ostentum regibus ut facerent.

Saecula regnantum, nigrum Romana potestas

     Invideat vatem iure, Philippe, tibi!

Filius ecclesiae vives, Auguste Philippe,           

     Si pateant cunctis ad pia vota fores.                     40

Nec rerum est Dominus, qui non admiserit omnes,

     Gentem ne excludat Regia forte meam.

Dignetur Regnis hominem donare Phillpus,

     Scriptorem fratris iam velit esse sui            

Si Christus vitae fuscos non despicit autor,                45

     Catholicus vatem respice iure tuum.

Ludicra, nec leuia haec scribuntur gesta poetae,

     Roma ducem similem non tulit Austriadam.

Candidus hic lector cursus puppesque tuorum

     Victorem norit, fluctibus Austriadam.                   50

Devictos Turcas cernet, classemque superbam,

     Et Parthos fratrem vincere magnanimum.

Consilium pelagi, regis navale tyranni

     Imperium fractum, captaque signa sciet.    

Omnia quae Latio scribit sermone Latinus,                55

     Versibus et veris, arma ducesque canit.

Regnatura diu maiestas summa Philippi,

     Scripta typis cudi haec imperet ipsa novis:

Ut vivat carmen gestorum fratris in orbe,        

     Posteritasque legat Regia facta viri                      60

Qui nunc est nobis belli spes altera ponto,

     Auspiciis nomen tollet ad astra tuum.

Est cultor Christi magnus, Matrisque beatae

     Virginis, Ecclesiae tutor, ad arma pius,                

Magnanimus, fortis, felix, ductorque benignus,        65

     Cui labor assiduus Martis, honorque placet.

Et miles pugnat, captis fit Caesar in armis,

     Prudens consilio crescit et ingenio.

Dum natus princeps paulatim surgit in hostes,

     Conficiet frater grandia bella tibi.                        70

Fernandusque tuus, spes nostri, et gloria saecli

     Res gerere et Martem discet amare suum.

Virtute at patrem referens nil linquet inausum,

     Sub iuga Turcarum mittet et Imperium:               

Sub te iam Christi reddet pietate sepulchrum,           75

     Regibus et fato debita regna tuis.

Нaeс tibi certa suo promittit carmine cornix,

     Felix cuncta bene et prospera dixit, erunt.

Notes.

First the marginal notes.

1. A consequentibus: “by its results”: a form of argumentation, or trope.

5. Ab orbe condita inauditum: “unheard since the beginning of the world”

7. Nigris parentibus catholicus floruit Dei misericordia: “Born to black parents he was raised a Catholic by the mercy of God.”

11. Dominus Ioannes ab Austria dux rarus: “Don Juan of Austria, a rare leader.

 16. Historia mirabilis: “A history full of wonders”

18. Gentium primitiae Magi ab Oriente: “The first fruits of the nations, i.e. the Magi from the East.”

21. Ubi tota cohors nigra: “Where the whole population is black.”

24. Generationem eius quis enarrabit? “Who will tell of his descendants?” The passage the Ethiopian eunuch was reading, Isaiah  53:8.

27. in actis Apostolorum Historia nota: “The famous story in the Acts of the Apostles”: Philip and the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-29.

29. Argumentorum nervi: “The heart of the argument.” You have to enjoy this sort of signposting.

31. Dominus Ioannes ab Austria Garnatae poetam novit et ad se familiariter admisit: “Don Juan of Austria recognized the poet at Grenada and admitted him to his circle of friends.”

35. Mos Regum: “The custom of kings.”

40. Ex omni natione quae sub coelo est: “From every nation under the sun.”

49. Materia operis: “The subject matter.”

57. Petitio honesta: “An honorable request”

63. Dotes Regiae: “Royal gifts.”

64. D. Domini Ioannis ab Austria dotes mirabliles, et Catholicae: The wonderful and Catholic gifts of Don Juan of Austria.”

67. Pugnat et ducit exercitum Caesar alter: “He fights and leads his army like another Caesar.

72. Princeps magnus futurus patris similis: “The great prince to come, just like his father.”

75. Christianorum desiderium: “The desire of all Christians.”

78. Allusio ad cornicem Tarpeiam: “Allusion to the crow on the Tarpeian Hill.” The story is told by Suet. Dom. 22: “A few months before he [Domitian] was slain, a crow on the Capitol uttered these words: "All will be well." Some person gave the following interpretation of this prodigy [elegiac couplet]:         

Nuper Tarpeio quae sedit culmine cornix.

     "Est bene," non potuit dicere; dixit, "Erit."

Just now a crow sat on the peak of the Tarpeian Hill;

     It could not say, “All is well”; it said, “But it will be.”

But, of course, it is also a clever closing allusion to himself, as a black bird of prophesy.

Other notes:

1. fratri: Don Juan of Austria, the victor at Lepanto, see Chesterton’s “Lepanto.”

2. Austrĭădēs, -ae, “descendent of Austria,” the productive Greek patronymic ending, as in Πηλη-ϊάδης ‘son of Peleus’, etc.

12. Phoenicem: the unique bird.

13. Terribilis classis: nom. (not with gentes), cf. Val. Max. 5.6.ext.4 on the Carthaginians: ubi cunctis litoribus terribilis classis? “Where now is their fleet, a terror to every shore?”

16. Cf. Mart. 10.2.12: Solaque non norunt haec monumenta mori. “Only these monuments know not how to die.”

18 gentum: the syncopated form of gentium is licensed by Acc. Trag. 580 (Phinidae), which Juan might have know from Nonius 84.28.

26. The argument seems to be that if one black man has the literary talent to read and ponder deeply on the Bible, another may have the literary talent to compose epic poetry.

27. ore: cf. Acts 8: 35: aperiens autem Philippus os suum et incipiens ab scriptura ista evangelizavit illi Iesum. “And opening his mouth and beginning from that very passage Philip told him the good news about Jesus.”

29. coelo: the very frequent spelling of the diphthong in caelum.

31. gentis iniquae: The Moriscos, whom Don Juan destroyed in the War of Las Alpujarras (1568−1571).

46. căthŏlĭcus: scanned Cātholicus, for the meter, with the authority of Prudentius, Apotheosis 2, 291, etc..

47. Nec for nec . . . nec; litotes. poetae: dat. of agent: Gildersleeve and Lodge §354. A displeasing line.

50. Victorem: asyndeton.  norit: fut. pf.

52: Parthos, i.e., the Ottomans. Horace is similarly free with names of Eastern enemies.

53. regis . . . tyranni: probably the Sultan Selim II, rather than the immediate admiral, the Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha (see also here).

54: captaque signa: Flags captured at Lepanto are still on display at the Armory of the Royal Palace in Madrid. The great green Banner of the Caliphs was displayed in the cathedral of Madrid, but was later destroyed by a fire in the Escorial.

56: arma ducesque canit.: a nice allusion to the opening of the Aeneid.

Translation:

A great deed demands an author, and a poet for your brother,

     great Phillip, was due to be born.

The victor is unique, so he requires a singular writer.

     A new deed wishes for a new poet for kings:

His victory on the sea has not yet been heard by your ears, kind King.     5

     The writer was not born in (this part of) the globe:

Latinus came from the land of the Ethiopians

     to sing the deeds of Juan of Austria with the wondrous art of poetry.

On bended knee he asks you, unconquered Philip,

     that he might be able to be your brother’s singer.                                10

For if the wars of Juan of Austria ennoble the poet,

     he, because he is black, makes Juan of Austria a phoenix.

When Philip’s terrifying fleet scatters the nations,

     then Juan of Austria will be a portent to the world.

The wondrous fame of the poet will stir men                                          15

     as they unroll these monuments in your chronicles.

The Dawn bore him and the rich kings of the Arabs,

     the first fruits of the nations, which she gave to God.

If our black face displeases your ministers, O King,

     a white face does not please the people of Ethiopia.                         20

Over there, when a white man visits the East, he is looked down on;

     the leaders (dukes) are black  and the king there is dark.

Queen Candace sent one of her own race, a black minister,

     in a chariot to Christ.

That man had read about the inexplicable “offspring” of Christ,           25

     and shall this man not sing the battles of your Juan of Austria?

Philip meeting the Ethiopian taught him about Christ by word of mouth.

     Christ sent his disciple to the Ethiopian.

So not by accident was a Philip given to an Ethiopian by heaven.

     Do not by chance, Philip, deny these just things to an Ethiopian.   30

And what of the fact that your Juan of Austria, the expeller of a hostile race,

     saw his own poet at Granada

and said, “I will tell my brother, Philip, wonders

     about you, who say you are a new kind of writer.”

Pious kings often keep wonderful things                                             35

     at court, so they can show them off to other kings.

Generations of rulers, the Power of Rome itself

     might rightly envy you, Philip, for having a black poet.

You will live as a son of the Church, august Philip,

     if your doors are open to everyone’s pious prayers.                       40

Nor is he the lord of the world, if he does not admit all.

     Let not your court exclude my race.

May Philip think it worthy to give a man to kings,

     may he wish to have a writer for his brother.

If Christ, the author of life, did not look down on dark people.          45

     look, O Catholic King, rightly on your poet.

No playful or lighthearted deed are written by the poet.

     Ancient Rome did not bear a leader like Juan of Austria.

Here the candid reader will learn the voyages and ships of your men,

     and Juan of Austria, victor on the waves.                                    50

He will see the Turks defeated, and their proud fleet,

     while his great-hearted brother defeats the Parthians.

He will learn of the council at sea, the naval power of the tyrannical king

     broken, and the standards captured.

All this Latino will write in Latin,                                                      55

     in true verses, he sings arms and the leaders.

May His Majesty, Philip, destined to reign for ages, give the order

      for all these things to be printed in new type,

so that the poem on the deeds of his brother may live throughout the world,

     and posterity may read the royal acts of the man                          60

who is now our new hope in war at sea.

The author will raise your name to the stars in his auspices.

Don Juan is a great worshiper of Christ, and of the Blessed Virgin Mary,

     a protector of the Church, pious in arms,

great-hearted, strong, lucky, and a kind leader,                                65

who loves the hard labor of Mars and honor.

He fights as a soldier and is a Caesar in captured arms,

     he grows prudent in council and talent.

While the newborn prince rises little by little against the enemy.

     your brother will make great wars for you.                                  70

And your Ferdinand, our great hope, and glory of the age,

     will learn to rule the state and love Mars as his own.

Recalling his father in virtue, he will leave nothing untried,

     he will even put the empire of the Turks under the yoke.

Under you soon he will restore the Sepulcher of Christ.                 75

     a kingdom owed to fate and your kings.

The crow in his song sings these things to you as certainties,

     Happy he has said that all things will be well and prosperous.

To the best of my knowledge this is the first complete translation of this poem into English. There are parts in Spratlin’s Juan Latino, in Gates and Wolff’s “An Overview” and in Alan Lomax and Raoul Abdu, eds. 3000 Years of Black Poetry. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1970.

Sarah Spence and Elizabeth R. Wright are working on a volume of Latino’s poetry for I Tatti Renaissance Library. I can hardly wait.