Joannes Leo Africanus (ca. 1492–ca. 1550)

Joannes Leo Africanus was the Christian name of the Granadan-born Moroccan Hassan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan. While returning to Fez from a trip to Egypt, al-Wazzan was captured by Sicilian pirates and subsequently presented as a gift to Pope Leo X, who baptized him a Christian. In Italy, Africanus wrote A geographical historie a work that challenged European orthodoxies concerning African barbarism and monstrosity and informed almost every European text on Africa published until the end of the eighteenth century. First published in Giambattista Ramusio’s Primo volume delle navigationi et viaggi (Venice, 1550), Ageographical historie was translated into English in 1600 by John Pory, who encrusted the text with his own commentaries and fabulous accounts of African monstrosity.