As a detective of journalist's work would perhaps, or, a journalist's historian involved in detective work, Natalie Zemon Davis reveals the who, what, when and how of al-Hassan al-Wassan's production of books. The story comes in a series of layers. Once the process is learned, the narrative pages lifted and removed and analyzed and then placed expertly back into place, one after another, she renders it seemingly simply as the details coalesce into a fine grain picture. But unlike a regular linear book here, over and over, certain details and approaches and relations with the people, places, and processes are slightly repeated in order to tease out this or that aspect of the various contexts. This is also a wonderful thing if at first, it seems a bit ponderous. Going back to this book again and again, I find more and more each time I do.
Forced into leaving with his family as refugees from Spain, he found work. Literate he could act as a scribe in present-day Morooco as a kind of notary, and then after many trials as an ambassador to the sultan of Fez. After many more travels he found himself captured by pirates and then under guard under the Castell San Angelo in Rome. In time, after catechism and conversion, and the curious adoption by Pope Leo X in 1520, al-Hasan opted to travel. Venturing to Venice and Florence, Naples, and probably, Davis figures, spending more time in Bologna and Viterbo outside of Rome, he could learn enough of the local language and customs, as well as the words for certain things from the many people he could meet along the way.
In addition to a grammar for Arabic, al-Hasan wrote a number of other books while in Italy, that is, before his departure in 1527. Either with (or working for) Cardinal Egido in Viterbo, or, for Alberto Pio (now the ambassador for French King Francis), or alongside (perhaps even in consultation with) Jacob Mantino (the Jewish doctor in Rome), al-Hasan found time to write a number of collections.
What he is most known for though is his Description of Africa. This too Davis so carefully pores over layer upon layer, that she can make look easy revealing all that time has gathered in curtains of obscurity. There are the possible influences, as well as physical processes, even interpreted intentions she brings to light and places it all in those turbulent times. Nothing all at once, each in its time, each article carefully handled and turned to see how it might fit with the other pieces of all these stories that have come down to us.
The Cardinal didn't like Muslims in Europe or Asia or Africa, but accepted al-Hasan as his godson. Davis quotes this cardinal's sermons as divisive examples regarding various misinterpretation of Islamic traditions, pointing out that al-Hassan had to know the good cardinal was getting it wrong. [pp. 81-2]
However, a great project in the west was in compiling translations of the Bible and comparing them. Controversy over Erasmus and his (1516) New Testament translation of koine Greek apart from the Latin Vulgate (and its traditions) encouraged many others in the following years to look into Hebrew and Greek and even Aramaic languages. Some like Cisneros in Spain wanted direct comparisons between all the languages including Arabic.
From Cardinal Egido though, al-Hasan was given a Latin translation of the Quran obtained while the cardinal was in Spain. Egido had received this from one Joannes Gabriel, in order for his godson to correct the manuscript. Davis notes that al-Hasan surely found some pleasure in this work in setting many things right. [pp.241]
During this time in Italy, al-Hasan also found himself in the service of Alberto Pio. An ambassador for Maximillian and then for French King Francis, this Duke of Capri asked al-Hasan for him to copy an Arabic translation of the letters of Paul found then in the Vatican Library. [p. 69] Both their association and the task could be beneficial for al-Hasan. Through dialogue with this august person, he might learn some of the intentions of the new French King, who Pio represented in Rome, and also, from such a text, at least potentially, a clearer view into the ways Paul's thought could be expressed in Arabic. This too could also more firmly base al-Hasan's working knowledge in many common terms and concepts used in Biblical translation that he might use elsewhere as a translator.
Back in Rome, he would stay near Sant' Agostino in the Campo Marzio, Cardinal Egido's Order. [p.70] Here he could keep his access to manuscripts from the Church, have time and space to work on an increasing number of projects and, keep an eye on the various comings and goings of churchmen and ambasadors and the swirling opinions that always seemed to be rising to a fever pitch there and then.
In the early 1520's there had been a rapid succession of popes. Leo X (the Medici pope that had adopted and baptised al-Hasan), died on the first of December, 1521, and he was replaced with Adrian of Utrecht. A doctor of theology at the University of Leuven, Adrian had become tutor to the future Charles V, and even co-regent with Cisneros over Spain, until Charles could mature and gain accession there. In this way Adrian's own accession to the papacy was fraught with dissent as many at first feared a schism or severe break among the churches of Italy, France or Spain, with the head at Rome. Everyone wanted their own man and everyone distrusted each other. But even Adrian knew there were two chief concerns for a new pope. There was an acknowledged need within the church for broad reform and a need to quell spreading Lutheranism. There was also a stated need to combat the Turk who had extended territorially in places beyond Greece.
It took over seven months for Adrian to arrive from Spain to Rome, and after a few attempts at reform, and just after a year and two weeks there, he died. Again for the next vote, Medici influence in Rome prevailed and Giulio di Giuliano, a cousin to Leo X became the new pope. Francis I in Paris was alarmed at this return to Italian-based power and focused on reestablishing French power there by sending his armies to Milan. Against this background of shifting power, alliances and motivations, a wise observer might avoid trouble by staying clear out of the way, working on manuscripts, detailing translations, writing down things if only he could recall.
Where Cardinal Egido or Alberto Pio might dictate letters or essays to a scribe, Davis tells us, al-Hasan would write in his own hand with a pen and ink, going left to right on a line, and in the local Italian language. [p.96] He had reasons too for writing this for an Italian audience. With reports coming in daily of news from the wider world, their imaginative and mental world was rapidly filling up with exciting tales of explorers in the Americas. Al-Hasan could see the locals here also knew less about their continental neighbors to the south. During his stay he could see the proliferation of printed books and how they could influence and educate whether with accurate or inaccurate information and much else.
If he could secure a publisher, his work on Africa might find many eager readers even beyond those well-educated who knew Latin. But with a press he could also guess that his work might travel and last longer than a single hand-written manuscript. Thus anything he might say about Africa or the people there, their customs or, about Islam or its traditions and histories might also be read by some future Muslim reader. [pp. 106-8, 124] This, Davis points out is another reason for al-Hasan to be careful about what and how he set things down.
This manuscript on Africa would be finished March 10, 1526 and stretch out over 900 pages. This would be given to a scribe who would rewrite it, mistakes and all, and then hand it over to be shelved. This copy was discovered around 1930 and stays at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Rome. The stories of 'Leo Africanus' would proliferate and spread many misunderstandings in the intervening years but this seems to be the fault of the messengers along the way and does not seem the result of al-Hasan's work.
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Davis, Natalie Zemon: Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth Century Muslim Between Worlds, Hill and Wang, A Division of Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, NY, 2006
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