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1489 Leo is born in Granada as Hassan al-Wazzan 1494 Leo/Hassan leaves Granada in exile to settle in Fez 1504 Leo/Hassan begins his travels with his uncle, a diplomat for the Sultan of…

To view places on the Sub-saharan itinerary of Leo Africanus, Harvard University’s WorldMap "Leo Africanus' Places" website includes a set of map overlays on a 16th century map, with descriptive information and contemporary photographs from the…

Leo Africanus What do you think about the opening paragraph of Leo Africanus? In what ways does this particular statement of identity—or perhaps “anti-identity”—inform the rest of the book?How does it relate to the overall…

Of the region of Sous. Now comes the region of Sus to be considered of, being situated beyond [the] Atlas, over against the territorie of Hea, that is to say, in the extreme part of Africa. Westward it beginneth from the Ocean sea, and southward from…

In 1550, a remarkable book about Africa, La Descrittione dell’Africa, came off the Giunta press in Venice, as the first volume of Giovanni Battista Ramusio’s celebrated series of Voyages. It had been written by an African, Ramusio assured…

The BBC Arabic film Leo Africanus: A Man between Worlds by Moroccan journalist Badr Sayegh retraces key locations visited by Leo Africanus, the Muslim born as Hasan al-Wazzan in the 1480s. Captured by pirates, he was given as a slave to the Pope and…

This 1986 novel, originally published in French as Léon, l’Africain, is the imagined autobiography of real-life geographer, adventurer, and scholar Hasan al-Wassan (ca. 1494–ca. 1554), whose far-reaching travels in the sixteenth…