Leo Africanus

About “Leo Africanus”

This is a fictional autobiography based on a true story. In 1518, a Maghrebi ambassador, returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, is captured by Sicilian pirates and given as a gift to Pope Leo X. The traveler was named Hassan al-Wazzan, who later becomes the geographer Jean-Léon de Médicis, known as Leo the African. His life, filled with passion, danger, and honor, was marked by major events of his time. He was in Granada during the Reconquista, fled the Inquisition with his family, was in Egypt during the Ottoman conquest, traveled in the heart of the Songhai Empire, and lived in Rome during the height of the Renaissance, as well as during the city's sack by the soldiers of Charles V. A man of the East and West, of Africa and Europe, his life perfectly reflects the extraordinary sixteenth century.