Leo Africanus (al-Hasan al-Wazzan)

Who is Leo Africanus (al-Hasan al-Wazzan)?

Al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi, known in Europe as Leo Africanus, was a diplomat and geographer born in Granada around 1494, whose family emigrated to Fez, Morocco, following the fall of the city to the Christian Reconquista. Educated in Fez, he traveled widely across North Africa, the Sahara and the Middle East on diplomatic and commercial missions. Around 1518 he was captured by Christian corsairs in the Mediterranean and presented to Pope Leo X, who freed him, sponsored his conversion, and gave him the Latin name Johannes Leo de Medicis. During his years in Italy he wrote, in Italian, the 'Description of Africa' (Descrittione dell'Africa), completed around 1526 and printed in 1550. For centuries it was Europe's most authoritative source on the geography, cities, peoples and trade of North and West Africa, including detailed descriptions of Fez and Timbuktu. He is believed to have later returned to North Africa.

Sources: Natalie Zemon Davis, 'Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds' (Hill and Wang, 2006) · Leo Africanus, 'The History and Description of Africa', trans. John Pory, ed. Robert Brown (Hakluyt Society, 1896)