own name, Leo. Our traveller now resided principally at Rome, occasionally quitting it, however, for Bologna; and having at length acquired a competent knowledge of the Italian language, became professor of Arabic. Here he wrote his famous "Description of Africa," originally in Arabic, but he afterward either rewrote or translated it into Italian. What became of him or where he resided after the death of his munificient patron is not certainly known.—One of the editions of Ramusio asserts that he died at Rome; but according to Widmanstadt, a learned German orientalist of the sixteenth century, he retired to Tunis, where, as is usual in such cases, he returned to his original faith, which he never seems inwardly to have abandoned. Widmanstadt adds, that had he not been prevented by circumstances which he could not control, he should have undertaken a voyage to Africa expressly for the purpose of conversing with our learned traveller, so great was his admiration of his genius and acquirements.
With respect to the work by which he will be known to posterity, and which has furnished the principal materials for the present life,—his "Description of Africa,"—its extraordinary merit has been generally acknowledged. Eyriès, Hartmann, and Bruns, whose testimony is of considerable weight, speak of it in high terms; and Ramusio, a competent judge, observes, that up to his time no writer had described Africa with so much truth and exactness. In fact, no person can fail, in the perusal of this deeply interesting and curious work, to perceive the intimate knowledge of his subject possessed by the author, or his capacity to describe what he had seen with perspicuity and ease. The best edition of the Latin version, the one I myself have used, and that which is generally quoted or referred to, is the one printed by the Elzevirs, at Leyden, in 1632. It has been translated into English, French, and German, but with what success I am ignorant.
