‘Leo Africanus’ and His Worlds of Translation

Abstract

Inviting me to participate in this book, Federico Federici suggested I discuss the man Europeans called ‘Leo Africanus’, the subject of my recent book. A Muslim and North African diplomat, Hasan al-Wazzan had been captured by Christian pirates in 1518 and spent some nine years in Italy. During his stay, among other activities, he wrote in Italian a much read and much translated Description of Africa, thereby taking on — as Professor Federici put it — an ‘accidental role as “functional” translator, [an] erudite scholar who had not planned to act as informant’.