Leo Africanus De totius Africae description, libri IX

The rare book of the month for March 2016 is a hugely influential Renaissance volume written by Leo Africanus (or Al-Hassan Ibn Mohammad al-Weza al-Fasis). Leo Africanus was born circa 1492 in Granada and died circa 1550, probably in Tunis. The work is an account of his extensive travels from 1512 to 1520, when he visited the Maghrib, Tunis, sub-Saharan Africa, Guinea, the Niger Basin and Lake Chad. During this period he also travelled to Constantinople, Egypt, and Armenia. He is known to have travelled “up the Nile from Cairo to Aswan” during his 1517-1520 travels.

Leo Africanus was captured during his travels (in 1520) off the island of Djerba and handed over as a slave to Pope Leo X. Some accounts say his captors were pirates, others that they were Christian sailors (Knights of Saint John to be exact). He was “persuaded to convert to Christianity” during this time, sponsored by Pope Leo at his baptism, conferring upon him his own names, Johannes and Leo. Leo wrote an account of his travels at the behest of Pope Leo X. The original version was probably written in Arabic, but this manuscript is now lost. However, an Italian manuscript version of Leo’s voyages entitled Cosmographia e descrizione de Affrica was re-discovered in 1931 and is now held at the Biblioteca nazionale centrale in Rome: MS Vitt. Em.953. The first printed version of the work appeared in Italian in 1550, as part of Giovanni Battista Rumsio’s Delle navigationi e viaggi, [primo volume]. The Library has a 1563 edition of this compendium, printed in Venice. The work then appeared in French, in Lyon in 1556. The Latin translation held by the Library was made by Joannes Florianus and printed in Antwerp by Jean Laet in 1556. It is this Latin version which was then translated into English by John Pory in 1600 “at the suggestion of Richard Hakluyt”. The English version includes a map, a scan of which can be viewed here.

In 2011 the BBC produced a 54 minute documentary about Leo Africanus and uploaded it to YouTube.

The image above shows the book open at Leo’s description of Timbuktu, where he mentions the king’s riches, the houses and temples, trade and the scarcity of salt available in the city. An English translation of the 1526 manuscript account is available to read here.

The title page is adorned with a printer’s device, as shown in the image at the top of the page. In this case, it is the device of Jean Laet (ca. 1525-ca. 1567) and it depicts a farmer sowing the field surrounded by the motto- ‘Spes alit agricolas’, Hope feeds the farmers. Printers often created (or expropriated) devices and mottos in order to stamp their work and make it distinctive. In this case, Laet has chosen an emblem-style of device, which became a common practice amongst printers by the 1550s.

The book does not have any significant marginal annotations or provenance marks (apart from some underlining of the text), but it most likely formed part of the 1641 Robert Ashley bequest. Ashley was interested in travel, geography and accounts of foreign lands; there are nine other works in the early printed books collection on Africa and its history.

This book is in need of conservation and would cost £175 to repair. If you would like to sponsor its repair, full details on how to do so are available here,  or email the librarian on: r.satterley@middletemple.org.uk.

- Renae Satterley (r.satterley@middletemple.org.uk), Acting Keeper of the Library, March 2016