Leo Africanus

Leo Africanus (born c. 1485, Granada, Kingdom of Granada [Spain]—died c. 1554, Tunis [now in Tunisia]) was a traveler whose writings remained for some 400 years one of Europe’s principal sources of information about Islam.

Educated at Fès, in Morocco, Leo Africanus traveled widely as a young man on commercial and diplomatic missions through North Africa and may also have visited the city of Timbuktu (now in Mali) as well as the valley of the Niger River. While in Egypt (1516–17), he ascended the Nile to Aswan. On his voyage homeward through the Mediterranean he was captured by Christian pirates and, because he revealed extraordinary intelligence, was presented as a gift to Pope Leo X. Impressed with his slave’s learning, the pontiff freed him after a year and, having persuaded him to profess Christianity, stood sponsor at his baptism in 1520. As Giovanni Leone (John Leo), the new convert enjoyed favour in scholarly Roman society, learned Latin and Italian, and taught Arabic. Around 1526 he completed his greatest work, Descrittione dell’Africa (1550; A Geographical Historie of Africa, 1600). He eventually returned to North Africa, where he is believed to have died a Muslim.