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There is an excellent article about Alessandro de'Medici, Duke of Florence in K.Lowe and T.Earle (eds.) Black Africans in Renaissance Europe (2006). 

Miranda 

In message <6FB3B00934464984893B680A92C50B8F@pssru2007pc03> The Black and Asian Studies Association <[log in to unmask]> writes:
> Many of you have sent info on more pubs named Black Boy, but no-one has come
> up with any further info as to the use of the name. Of course, it could have
> had a variety of origins - eg, the Black servants working there. 
> 
> The notion that it was the meeting place of royalists is very interesting.
> Of course during the Cromwell era, it would have been much safer to speak of
> the Black Boy, when referring to the dark-skinned son of Charles I. But does
> this indicate that there was nothing negative associated with such a name? 
> 
> Michael Frohnsdorff wrote me that Charles's mother 'Henrietta Maria, was the
> daughter of Marie de Medici and Henri IV. Both of these were of
> Mediterranean origin, the Medicis, of course, were Florentine, and Henri,
> from Navarre. It's not inconceivable that Moorish blood could have got into
> the blood-line of either, though Navarre is the more promising link.' So I
> looked up the Medicis in JA Rogers' Sex and Race -published in 1952, so
> there might be much more research.  From what he says, a number of the
> Medicis had married/ had children by African women - eg Alessandro, duke of
> Florence, had a 'Negro' mother, apparently the mistress of 'Cardinal dei
> Medici' - later Pope Clement. 'Charles II came of this stock', says Rogers.
> (p.164) 
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> Does anyone know any more? Either about Charles, or about the use of the
> name 'Black Boy'?
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> (There is a portrait in Sex and Race of Charlotte Sophia, wife of George
> III, which certainly indicates that she was mixed-race.)
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> Marika
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Miranda Kaufmann
Christ Church, Oxford, OX1 1DP
mob: 07855 792 885