LEO, JOHANNES (c. 1494-1552?), in Italian GIOVANNI LEO or LEONE, usually called LEO AFRICANUS, sometimes ELI BERITANUS (i.e., of Granada), and properly known among the Moors as Al Hassan Ibn Mohammed Al Wezaz Al Fasi, was the author of a Descrizione dell' Africa, or Africae descriptio, which long ranked as the best authority on Mohammedan Africa. Born probably at Granada of a noble Moorish stock, he received a great part of his education at Fez, and travelled widely in the Barbary States. Before the end of 1513 he seems to have started on his famous Sudan and Sahara journeys (1513-1515) which brought him to Timbuktu, to many other regions of the Great Desert and the Niger basin, and apparently to Bornu and Lake Chad. In 1516-1517 he travelled to Constantinople, probably visiting Egypt on the way; it is more uncertain when he visited the three Arabias (Deserta, Felix and Petraea), Armenia and "Tartary" (the last term is perhaps satisfied by his stay at Tabriz). His three Egyptian journeys, immediately after the Turkish conquest, all probably fell between 1517 and 1520; on one of these he ascended the Nile from Cairo to Assuan.
As he was returning from Egypt about 152o he was captured by pirates near the island of Gerba, and was ultimately presented as a slave to Leo X. The pope assigned him a pension and having persuaded him to profess the Christian faith, stood sponsor at his baptism, and bestowed on him (as Ramusio says) his own names, Johannes and Leo. The new convert, having learned Latin and Italian, taught Arabic (among his pupils was Cardinal Egidio Antonini, bishop of Viterbo) ; he also wrote books in both the Christian tongues he had acquired. His Description of Africa
was first, apparently, written in Arabic, but the primary text now remaining is that of the Italian version, issued by the author (1526) at Rome, three years after Pope Leo's death. The Moor returned to Africa some time before his death at Tunis, probably in 1552; according to some, he renounced his Christianity and returned to Islam.
The Descrizione dell' Africa in its original Arabic ms. is said to have existed for some time in the library of Vincenzo Pinelli (1535-1601) ; the Italian text, though issued in 1526, was first printed by Giovanni Battista Ramusio in his Navigationi et Viaggi (vol. i.) of 1550. A Latin version by Joannes Florianus, Joannis Leonis Africani de totius Africae descriptione libri i.—ix. served as the basis of John Pory's Eliza bethan English translation, made at the suggestion of Richard Hakluyt (A Geographical Historie of Africa, London, 16m). Pory's version was reissued, with notes, maps, etc., by Robert Brown, E. G. Raven stein, etc. (3 vols., Hakluyt Society, London, Heinrich Barth's great works on the Sudan are the best elucidation of the Descrizione dell' Africa.
Leo also wrote lives of the Arab physicians and philosophers (De viris quibusdam illustribus spud Arabes; see J. A. Fabricius, Bibli otheca Graeca, Hamburg, 1726, xiii. 259-298) ; a Spanish-Arabic vocabulary, now lost, but noticed by Ramusio as having been consulted by the famous Hebrew physician, Jacob Mantino ; a collection of Arabic epitaphs in and near Fez (the ms. of this Leo presented, it is said, to the brother of the king) ; and poems, also lost.