Antonìo Etiope e Benedito o mouro: o escravinho santo e o preto eremita,

Sicily, a spanish vice-kingdom near the northern african coasts, was a cultural crossroad and for as the same time a privileged laboratory for the activity of religious orders and the construction of the model of black sainthood that facilitated the conversion of african salves. The two black saints, offered the orders a brilliant opportunity to idealize the condition of slavery as a path that could lead, through suffering, to the ultimate prize: heavenly paradise. The article outlines the two franciscan saint's rise to fame in Latin America, and the construction of a hagiographic legend that came to Europe as part of the process of their canonization.