LEO AFRICANUS
(Johannes Leo Africanus)
Johannis Leo de Medici. He had been a slave captured by Christians but was freed and converted by the Pope who commissioned the study. This work was the primary European resource on Africa for years. It demonstrates that Black slavery existed as an African institution for some time before the Europeans and Americans took it to a new plateau.
Johannes Leo Africanus (c. 1494 – c. 1554) was an Andalusi diplomat and author who is best known for his 1526 book Cosmographia et geographia de Affrica, later published by Giovanni Battista Ramusio as Descrittione dell'Africa (Description of Africa) in 1550, centered on the geography of the Maghreb and Nile Valley. The book was regarded among his scholarly peers in Europe as the most authoritative treatise on the subject until the modern exploration of Africa. For this work, Leo became a household name among European geographers. He converted from Islam to Christianity and changed his name to Johannes Leo de Medicis (يوحنا الأسد). Leo possibly returned to North Africa in 1528, reverting back to Islam.
