Twofold Slavery: Slave in Malta, Slave to Love of his Beloved Master. The Peaceful Letter a Muslim Sent to Baldassarre Loyola Mandes SJ (1631–1667)1

This chapter conducts a historical-textual analysis of a passionate letter a Muslim slave in Malta sent to Baldassarre Loyola Mandes (1631–1667), a seventeenth-century Moroccan ruler who converted to Christianity and became a Jesuit. The author of the letter reacts to Baldassarre’s conversion to Christianity by expressing love and nostalgia for him, while almost completely avoiding religious polemics. I will therefore trace the historical roots of the homoerotic poetics of missed love and nostalgia for the beloved, as it was conceived in much Islamic culture, in the letter by the Muslim slave. Furthermore, I will analyse the Italian translation made by Baldassarre himself in order to understand how Islamic cultural and religious elements were made intelligible to an early modern Christian audience. In the conclusion, I will express some reflections about translation as a practice and about the asymmetrical position of sender and addressee.