I'm writing a graphic novel that takes place in late 15th century Italy. It's fantasy but I want to learn as much as I can about real world history to inform my work. I want to know about how non-white people were treated during this time. Where there any cultural groups that had been there for a long time? If they recently immigrated, where did they come from, how and why? What were the stigmas and how were these people generally treated? Did they have less 'rights', and were interracial relationships allowed? Did governments at the time recognize or communicate with foreign leaders in Africa, the Arabic peninsula or the Ottoman Empire? I read somewhere else that in the past crusaders sometimes forcefully brought foreign people back with them.
I would love any links to articles or names of documentaries on the topic you may have.
in the Italy of the Renaissance this between the mid-1400s and the 1500s the presence of non-European populations, at least in Italy, was minimal. typically in Venice, and in other important merchant republics you could find merchants from the Ottoman Empire from Egypt and various parts of the Middle East, these people were rich or important so typically the city population did not interfere with their business as the economy of these cities was based on trade between east and west, of course it is possible that there were single people from Africa or the Middle East who after the return of a merchant ship decided to stay but these people worked for those who had brought them (rich merchants and bankers) so the low people would not attack them because an attack on a servant of a nobleman was an attack on the nobleman himself but they were probably despised by the low people for the simple fact of being different.
For the possibility of Middle Eastern populations in southern Italy the situation is very different until 1200 remained a small Arab population that had settled in Sicily during the period of the caliphate, but the continuous attacks of Moorish pirates throughout southern Italy (with related abductions of people for slavery) brought a strong hatred towards these people then either they left or were probably killed.
diplomatic contacts between the Italian Renaissance nations and their Arab, Turkish and African counterparts were varied, the Venetians had a long history of conflict against the Ottoman Turks (8 wars in total) for the domination of the Mediterranean and its islands (Venice owned a small commercial empire that included Crete the south of Greece and cyprus) but at the same time there were strong trade between the two powers, Genoa also had a small colonial empire that included the Crimea and then I came into contact with the Mongolian population in 1200 that invaded the area, the kingdom of Naples was in constant war with the North African sultanates (Naples succeeded for a short time also to conquer Tunisia). For Africa there were not many exchanges with African black populations since the coast of North Africa was inhabited by Arabs and European traders at the time relied on Arab or Turkish intermediaries for trade in those areas.
I hope I was helping