Johannes Leo Africanus (born al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Wazzān al-Zayyātī al-Fasī, ; c. 1494 – c. 1554) was an Andalusi diplomat and author who is best known for his 1526 book Cosmographia et geographia de Affrica, later published by Giovanni Battista Ramusio as Descrittione dell'Africa (Description of Africa) in 1550, centered on the geography of the Maghreb and Nile Valley. The book was regarded among his scholarly peers in Europe as the most authoritative treatise on the subject until the modern exploration of Africa. For this work, Leo became a household name among European geographers. He converted from Islam to Christianity and changed his name to Johannes Leo de Medicis (Arabic: يوحنا الأسد, romanized: Yuḥannā al-Asad). Leo possibly returned to North Africa in 1528.
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👉 Leo Africanus in the context of Kufra District
Kufra, Kufrah or Kofra (Arabic: الكفرة Al Kufra), also spelled Cufra in Italian, is the largest district of Libya and the second largest such district in Africa. It is slightly smaller than the country of Turkmenistan. Its capital is Al Jawf, one of the oases in Kufra basin. There is a very large oil refinery near the capital. In the late 15th century, Leo Africanus reported an oasis in the land of the Berdoa, visited by a caravan coming from Awjila. It is possible that this oasis in question was either the Al Jawf or the Taiserbo oasis, and on early modern maps, the Al Kufra region was often labelled as Berdoa based on this report.
Leo Africanus in the context of White Aethiopians
White Aethiopians (Λευκαιθίοπες ; Leucæthiopes) is a term found in ancient Greco-Roman literature, which may have referred to various light-complexioned populations inhabiting the Aethiopia region of antiquity. The exonym is used by Pliny the Elder, and is also mentioned by Pomponius Mela, Ptolemy and Orosius. These authorities do not, however, agree on the geographical location of the White Aethiopians.
Medieval geographers, including Ibn Hawqal and Leo Africanus, similarly noted the existence of various "white" or "olive" groups and individuals in territories and kingdoms south of the Sahara. However, the fate of these inhabitants is uncertain.
Leo Africanus in the context of Natalie Zemon Davis
Natalie Zemon Davis, CC (November 8, 1928 – October 21, 2023) was an American-Canadian historian of the early modern period. She was the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at Princeton University. Her work originally focused on France, but it later broadened to include other parts of Europe, North America, and the Caribbean. For example, her book, Trickster Travels (2006), views Italy, Spain, Morocco and other parts of North Africa and West Africa through the lens of Leo Africanus's pioneering geography. (By 2023, the text had appeared in six translations.) Davis' books have all been translated into other languages: twenty-two for The Return of Martin Guerre. She was the second female president of the American Historical Association (the first, Nellie Neilson, was in 1943).
Davis was awarded the Holberg International Memorial Prize and National Humanities Medal and was named Companion of the Order of Canada.