Luis del Marmol Carvajal (

Granada Granada ( ; ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada (Spain), Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, 1524 - Velez Malaga,

, 1600) was a Spanish chronicler living many years among the formerly

Moorish The term Moor is an exonym used in European languages to designate the Muslim populations of North Africa (the Maghreb) and the Iberian Peninsula (particularly al-Andalus) during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a single, distinct or self-defi ...

kingdom

morisco ''Moriscos'' (, ; ; "Moorish") were former Muslims and their descendants whom the Catholic Church and Habsburg Spain commanded to forcibly convert to Christianity or face compulsory exile after Spain outlawed Islam. Spain had a sizeable Mus ...

's inhabitants and in the North African regions in the mid 16th century. Carvajal was born in

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

. He went to sea at age 12, and he became proficient in Hassaniya Arabic, Berber

Tamazight The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berber communities, who ar ...

and/or the

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

Taqbaylit language. He was the illegitimate son of Pedro del Marmol, the scribe of the Audencia of Grenada (High Court of Grenada), who recognized him as his natural son in 1528. It is not entirely clear whether his paternal family was of

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

ancestry, but biographers tend to suspect, for several reasons, that the family was Christian, though not of noble lineage. Whether his mother was some sort of slave or personal servant of his father, "given" or "bought" after the conquest of

, in 1492, cannot be confirmed, but she was probably of

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

descent. In 1535, he accompanied Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain to

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

. Around 1545, he was captured by the Turks and transported as a slave to

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

and the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

, going as far as

Guinea Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...

. He spent seven years and eight months in captivity and during this time he learned

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

and

. He was ransomed by an unidentified religious order in 1554, but he stayed in Africa to explore and study the continent, even travelling to

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

and

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

. In 1557, he returned to Spain and then fought in Italy for the army of the Duke of Alba. In 1571, he settled near the city of Vélez-Málaga and began his work on the African continent, named '' Descripción general de África''. In 1579, he was supposed to be appointed the Spanish ambassador to Morocco, but

King Philip II of Spain King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

chose someone of lesser merits because, unlike Mármol, he was of illustrious birth. In 1599, he published the second part of his ''Descripción general de África'', while his final work, ''Rebelión'', in which Mármol speaks of his concept on the role of history, a concept influenced by

Classicism Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aesthe ...

and the Renaissance Humanism, was published in 1600. Luis del Mármol y Carvajal's history is a very valuable reference for it covers a period longer by a further 50 years, than that of the other

Andalusia Andalusia ( , ; , ) is the southernmost autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain, located in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomou ...

n chronicler, the diplomat and author of '' Description of Africa'',Descrittione dell'Africa, Venice edition: 1550. French and Latin editions, 1556. known as Joannes Leo Africanus, or al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi, (ar: حسن ابن محمد الوزان الفاسي) (c. 1494 – c. 1554?).

References

*http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/extaut?codigo=75827 *http://www.filol.csic.es/departamentos/curricula/cv_garenal.html. A curriculum on the life and work of Spanish Arabis woman Mercedes García-Arenal, born 1950. {{DEFAULTSORT:Marmol Carvajal, Luis del 1524 births 1600 deaths Spanish geographers 16th-century Spanish historians