''Description of Africa'' was taken largely from the firsthand geographical work '' Cosmographia et geographia de Affrica'' completed by

Leo Africanus Joannes Leo Africanus (born al-Hasan Muhammad al-Wazzan, ar, الحسن محمد الوزان ; c. 1494 – c. 1554) was an Andalusian diplomat and author who is best known for his 1526 book '' Cosmographia et geographia de Affrica'', later ...

in 1526IL MANOSCRITTO DELLA COSMOGRAPHIA DE L'AFFRICA DI GIOVANNI LEONE AFRICANO. NOTE IN MARGINE ALL’EDIZIONE CRITICA DEL TESTO
HE MANUSCRIPT OF THE COSMOGRAPHIA DE L'AFFRICA BY JOHANNES LEO AFRICANUS SOME NOTES ABOUT THE CRITICAL EDITION OF THE TEXTAuthor: Cresti, Federico. Journal: Mediterranea. Ricerche storiche. ISSN: 1824-3010. Date: 08/01/2014. Issue: 31. Page: 383-396. and published under the title ''Della descrittione dell’Africa et delle cose notabili che ivi sono'' by

Giovanni Battista Ramusio Giovanni Battista Ramusio (; July 20, 1485 – July 10, 1557) was an Italian geographer and travel writer. Born in Treviso, Italy, at that time in the Republic of Venice, Ramusio was the son of Paolo Ramusio, a magistrate of the Venetian ci ...

in his collection of travellers' accounts ''Delle navigationi e viaggi'' in Venice in 1550. It contained the first detailed descriptions published in Europe of the Barbary Coast (modern Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) and the gold-trading kingdoms of west-central Africa. The book was dictated in Italian by

, the famed

Moor Moor or Moors may refer to: Nature and ecology * Moorland, a habitat characterized by low-growing vegetation and acidic soils. Ethnic and religious groups * Moors, Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, Iberian Peninsula, Sicily, and Malta during ...

ish traveler and merchant who had been captured by pirates and sold as a slave. Presented, along with his book, to

Pope Leo X Pope Leo X ( it, Leone X; born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, 11 December 14751 December 1521) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 March 1513 to his death in December 1521. Born into the prominent political an ...

, he was baptized and freed. Leo, whose name he took in baptism, suggested that he recast his Arabic work in Italian; it was completed in 1526. It was republished repeatedly by Ramusio in his ''Delle navigationi e viaggi'', translated into French and into Latin for the erudite, both in 1556. The ''Descrittione'' is in nine books, an introductory book and an appendix on rivers and fauna and flora, with seven books between, each describing a kingdom: the kingdoms of

Marrakesh Marrakesh or Marrakech ( or ; ar, مراكش, murrākuš, ; ber, ⵎⵕⵕⴰⴽⵛ, translit=mṛṛakc}) is the fourth largest city in the Kingdom of Morocco. It is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrakes ...

Fez Fez most often refers to: * Fez (hat), a type of felt hat commonly worn in the Ottoman Empire * Fez, Morocco (or Fes), the second largest city of Morocco Fez or FEZ may also refer to: Media * ''Fez'' (Frank Stella), a 1964 painting by the moder ...

Tlemcen Tlemcen (; ar, تلمسان, translit=Tilimsān) is the second-largest city in northwestern Algeria after Oran, and capital of the Tlemcen Province. The city has developed leather, carpet, and textile industries, which it exports through the por ...

and

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

, and the regions of

Numidia Numidia ( Berber: ''Inumiden''; 202–40 BC) was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians located in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up modern-day Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunis ...

, the

sub-Sahara Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the African co ...

n regions, and

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

. The work circulated in manuscript form for decades. It was in Ramusio's manuscript that

Pietro Bembo Pietro Bembo, ( la, Petrus Bembus; 20 May 1470 – 18 January 1547) was an Italian scholar, poet, and literary theorist who also was a member of the Knights Hospitaller, and a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. As an intellectual of the It ...

read it and was astonished: "I cannot imagine how a man could have so much detailed information about these things", he wrote to a correspondent, 2 April 1545. The book's importance stemmed from its accuracy at a time when the area was little known to Europeans, and its publication at precisely the moment when Latin Christian power was on a collision course with the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

in the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, while at the same time Western Africa was becoming more accessible to Europeans. The book was an enormous success in Europe, and was translated into many other languages, remaining a definitive reference work for decades (and to some degree, centuries) afterwards. In English it was served by John Pory, whose translation appeared in 1600 under the title ''A Geographical Historie of Africa, Written in Arabicke and Italian by Iohn Leo a More...'' in which form

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

may have seen it and reworked hints in creating the

title character The title character in a narrative work is one who is named or referred to in the title of the work. In a performed work such as a play or film, the performer who plays the title character is said to have the title role of the piece. The title of ...

of his ''

Othello ''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cypru ...

'' (ca. 1603). A twentieth-century rediscovery of the originally-dictated manuscript revealed that Ramusio, in smoothing the grammar of Leo Africanus's text had coloured many neutral details, to make it more palatable to Christian European audiences; French and English translators added further embellishments. Modern translations which incorporate this manuscript are thus more true to the original.

Editions

* * * * The first translation into English. * Scans from the Internet Archive
Volume 1 (pages 1-224)Volume 2 (pages 225-698)Volume 3 (pages 699- )Index
* Scholarly translation into French with extensive notes.

Editions

References

Further reading