“Pushing the Limits of Race in Early Modern Iberia: João de Sá, the Black Knight of the Order of Santiago in Chafariz d’El-Rei” with Héctor Linares (The Pennsylvania State University)

This lecture proposes an alternative reading of the Chafariz d´el rei painting: one that frames the portrait’s Black knight at the center of the work as opposed to offsetting it as artistic anecdote. Using museum artifacts and art objects to reconstruct this knight’s membership in the Order of Santiago, Linares will carefully analyze iconography and material objects recuperate the figure’s identity as a knight and as nobleman. In sum, the painting provides a glimpse into ways that Black Iberians moved through and negotiated the ranks of the Portuguese nobility as it also pays homage to this Black figure and captures his memory as a knight of Santiago.