Leo Africanus

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Leo Africanus

Joannes Leo Africanus, (c. 1494 – c. 1554?) (or al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi, arabic

Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet is the writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic language, Persian language, and Urdu language....
:??? ??? ???? ?????? ??????) was a Arab diplomat and author who is best known for his book Descrittione dell’Africa (Description of Africa
Description of Africa

Description of Africa, a largely firsthand geographical book, which was published under the title Descrittione dell? Africa by Ramusio in his collection of travellers' accounts Delle navigationi e viaggi in Venice in 1550, contained the first detailed descriptions published in Europe of the Barbary Coast and the gold-tradin...
) describing the geography of North Africa.
of what is known about his life is gathered from autobiographical notes in his own work. Leo Africanus was born in Granada

Granada

Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada , in the autonomous communities of Spain of Andalusia, Spain....
in around 1494 but his family moved to Fez soon after his birth.

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Joannes Leo Africanus, (c. 1494 – c. 1554?) (or al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi, arabic

Arabic alphabet

Biography

Most of what is known about his life is gathered from autobiographical notes in his own work. Leo Africanus was born in Granada

Granada

Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada , in the autonomous communities of Spain of Andalusia, Spain....
in around 1494 but his family moved to Fez soon after his birth. In Fez he studied at the University of Al Karaouine

University of Al Karaouine

The University of Al-Karaouine or Al-Qarawiyyin is a university located in Fes, Morocco. Founded in 859, as a religous school, the university is one of the leading spiritual and educational centers of the Muslim world....
. As a young man he accompanied an uncle on a diplomatic mission to the Maghreb

Maghreb

The Maghreb , also rendered Maghrib , meaning "place of sunset" or "western" in Arabic, is a region in North Africa. The term is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but in older Arabic usage pertained only to the area of the three countries between the high ranges of the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea....
, reaching as far as the city of Timbuktu

Timbuktu

Timbuktu is a city in Tombouctou Region, in the West African nation of Mali. It was made prosperous by Mansa Musa, tenth mansa of the Mali Empire....
(c. 1510), then part of the Songhai Empire

Songhai Empire

The Songhai Empire, also known as the Songhay Empire, was a pre-colonial African state of west Africa. From the early 15th to the late 16th century, Songhai was one of the largest African empires in history....
. In 1517 when returning from a diplomatic mission to Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the empire capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire . Strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, Byzantine Constantinople had been the capital of a Christendom empire, successor to ancient ancient Greece...
on behalf of Sultan Muhammad II of Fez he found himself in Rosetta

Rosetta

Rosetta is a port city on the Mediterranean Sea coast in Egypt. It is located 65 km east of Alexandria, at , in Al Buhayrah Governorate Governorates of Egypt....
during the Ottoman conquest of Egypt

History of Ottoman Egypt

Egypt was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. Egypt was always a difficult province for the Ottoman Sultans to control. It remained dominated by the semi-autonomous Mameluks until it was conquered by the France in 1798....
. He continued with his journey through Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , which means "the triumphant", is the Cairo and largest city of Egypt.It is the most populous metropolitan area in Egypt and is also one of the most populous in the world....
and Aswan

Aswan

Aswan , Egyptian language: Swenet , Coptic language: Swan; Greek language: Syene; ) is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate....
and across the Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a salt water inlet of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb sound and the Gulf of Aden....
to Arabia

Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula , Arabia, Arabistan, and the Arabian subcontinent is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia. The area is an important part of the Middle East and plays a critically important geopolitics role because of its vast reserves of petroleum and natural gas....
, where he probably performed a pilgrimage to Mecca

Mecca

Mecca , also spelled Makkah , Makka is a city in Saudi Arabia. Home to the Masjid al-Haram, it is the holy city in Islam and plays an important role in the faith....
. On his way back to Tunis

Tunis

Tunis is the Capital of the Tunisian Republic and also the Tunis Governorate, with a population of 1 200,000 in 2008 and over 3,980,500 in the municipal area....
in 1518 he was captured by Spanish corsair

Corsair

Corsairs were French privateers from the north-western French port of Saint-Malo, located on the northern coast of Brittany. Since the corsairs gained a swashbuckling reputation, the word corsair is also used generically as a more romantic or flamboyant version of the word privateer, or even of the word pirate....
s either near the island of Djerba

Djerba

Djerba is, at 514 km?, the largest island off North Africa, located in the Gulf of Gabes off the coast of Tunisia....
or more probably near Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
. He was taken to Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
and initially imprisoned in the Castel Sant’Angelo but when his captors realised his importance he was freed and presented to Pope Leo X

Pope Leo X

Pope Leo X, born Giovanni de' Medici was Pope from 1513 to his death. He was the last non-priest to be elected Pope. He is known primarily for the sale of indulgences to reconstruct St....
. He was baptized in the Basilica of Saint Peter's

St. Peter's Basilica

The Basilica of Saint Peter , officially known in Italian language as the Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano and commonly known as St. Peter's Basilica, is located within the Vatican City....
in 1520. It is likely that Leo Africanus was welcomed to the papal court, as the Pope feared that Turkish forces might invade Sicily and southern Italy, and a willing collaborator could provide useful information on North Africa.

Leo Africanus left Rome and spent the next 3 or 4 years travelling in Italy. While staying in Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, in the Po Valley , between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, exactly between the Reno River and the S?vena River....
he wrote an Arabic-Hebrew-Latin medical vocabulary, of which only the Arabic part has survived, and a grammar of Arabic of which only an eight page fragment has survived. He returned to Rome in 1526 under the protection of Pope Clement VII

Pope Clement VII

Pope Clement VII , born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, was a Cardinal from 1513 to 1523 and was Pope from 1523 to 1534....
. According to Leo, he completed his manuscript on African geography in the same year. The work was published in Italian with the title Della descrittione dell’Africa et delle cose notabili cheiui sono, per Giovan Lioni Africano
Description of Africa

Description of Africa, a largely firsthand geographical book, which was published under the title Descrittione dell? Africa by Ramusio in his collection of travellers' accounts Delle navigationi e viaggi in Venice in 1550, contained the first detailed descriptions published in Europe of the Barbary Coast and the gold-tradin...
in 1550 by the Venetian publisher Giovanni Battista Ramusio. The book proved to be extremely popular and was reprinted 5 times. It was also translated in other languages. French and Latin editions were published in 1556 while an English version was published in 1600 with the title A Geographical Historie of Africa
Description of Africa

Description of Africa, a largely firsthand geographical book, which was published under the title Descrittione dell? Africa by Ramusio in his collection of travellers' accounts Delle navigationi e viaggi in Venice in 1550, contained the first detailed descriptions published in Europe of the Barbary Coast and the gold-tradin...
. The Latin edition which contained many errors and mistranslations was used as the source for the English translation.

It is unlikely that Leo Africanus visited all the places that he describes and he must therefore have relied on information obtained from other travellers. In particular, it is doubtful whether he ever visited Hausaland

Hausa

Hausa may refer to:*the Hausa language*the Hausa people...
and Bornu

Bornu Empire

The Bornu Empire was a medieval African state of Nigeria from 1389 to 1893. It was a continuation of the great Kanem Empire founded centuries earlier by the Sayfawa Dynasty....
and it is even possible that he never crossed the Sahara

Sahara

The Sahara is the world's largest hot desert. At over 9,000,000 square kilometers , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as the United States or the continent of Europe....
but relied on information from other travellers that he met in Morocco.

At the time he visited the city of Timbuktu

Timbuktu

Timbuktu is a city in Tombouctou Region, in the West African nation of Mali. It was made prosperous by Mansa Musa, tenth mansa of the Mali Empire....
, it was a thriving Islam

Islam

Islam is a Monotheism, Abrahamic religion originating with the teachings of the Prophets of Islam Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure....
ic city famous for its learning. Timbuktu was to become a byword in Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
as the most inaccessible of cities, but at the time Leo visited, it was the center of a busy trade carried on by traders in Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
n products, gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79. It is a highly sought-after precious metal, having been used as money, as a store of value, in jewelry, in sculpture, and for ornamentation since the beginning of recorded history....
, printed cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, staple fiber that grows in a form known as a boll around the seeds of the cotton plant a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, India and Africa....
s and slaves

Slavery

Slavery is a form of forced labor where a person is compelled to Labor for another . Slaves are held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase, or birth, and are deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive Remuneration in return for their labor....
, and in Islamic books. Nothing is known of Leo's later life. According to one tradition, he left Rome shortly after the sack of the city in 1527

Sack of Rome (1527)

The Sack of Rome on 6 May 1527, carried out by the mutinous troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, marked a crucial imperial victory in the conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and the League of Cognac ? the alliance of France, Milan, Venice, Florence and the Papacy....
and is said to have died in 1554 in Tunis

Tunis

Tunis is the Capital of the Tunisian Republic and also the Tunis Governorate, with a population of 1 200,000 in 2008 and over 3,980,500 in the municipal area....
, having reconverted to Islam

Islam

Islam is a Monotheism, Abrahamic religion originating with the teachings of the Prophets of Islam Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure....
.

In fiction

A fictionalized account of his life, Leo Africanus
Leo Africanus (novel)

Leo Africanus is a 1986 in literature novel by Amin Maalouf, depicting the life of the mysterious Renaissance traveller Leo Africanus. Since very little is actually known about his life, fills in the historical episodes, placing Leo in the company of many of the key historical figures of his time, including three popes, , two Ottoman Empi...
, by Amin Maalouf

Amin Maalouf

Amin Maalouf , born 25 February 1949 in Beirut, is a Lebanon author. He writes in French language, and his works have been translated into many languages....
, fills in key gaps in the story and places Leo Africanus in all of the prominent events of his time.

External links

by Tom Verde
.