hybridity 351
So what was Leo Africanus in relation to our subjects? His book, best known as the
Description of Africa (it appeared in English in 1600) revealed, among many other
things, that his patria was not Europe, and not Christian. Davis considers that he
performed his Christianity while living in Italy, but in a way that went beyond hypoc-
risy, pretense, or convenience. The word “hybrid” seems at first glance inappropriate
or inadequate to describe the chameleon-like Leo because he changed identities over
time, as his makeup seems well beyond bicultural. Multilingual, multicultural, a man
of several professions, a cosmopolitan—Leo Africanus was between worlds. But one
cannot actually live between two worlds, except possibly in moments of flight, of
which he had at least three. Changing places over time left Leo the opportunity for
self-inventions.
A hybrid by birth, of mixed ethnicity or race (like his possible child), cannot often
chose his or her identity as freely. A Venetian woman born Beatrice Michiel (c. 1554–
1613) led a complex life, but let us keep a sharp focus on the aspects that fit the model
of the hybrid developed here (Dursteler, 2011: 1–33). Dursteler prefers the model of
renegade and recalls how Beatrice lived an example of “dualistic self-presentation”
(2011: 17). In 1559, Beatrice’s family was captured at sea by Ottoman corsairs.
Beatrice and her mother were ransomed but the brothers remained captives and one
of them, Gazanfer, converted to Islam, and climbed high in the Ottoman government
as a trusted and increasingly wealthy eunuch. He kept in touch with his relatives back
in Venice, and to make a long story short, in 1591 Beatrice “emigrated” to Istanbul,
leaving behind her second husband, children, and a considerable fortune. Perhaps
thinking to join her mother there (who had previously moved to be with her son),
Beatrice discovered that her mother had just died but that her brother was an impor-
tant and influential man, soon pressuring his sister to convert to Islam. Whatever
Beatrice’s reasons, and with no account from her we cannot be sure what they were,
she became Fatima Hatun, a Muslim woman now divorced from a bothersome hus-
band, and a rich single person enjoying high status in Ottoman society. Fatima mar-
ried again in 1593 but remained connected to her children back in Venice. When it
suited her she claimed in legal documents that she was forced to convert. It is cer-
tainly true that Fatima kept up business and familial relations back in Venice, and she
occasionally supplied the local Venetian representative with valuable intelligence on
Ottoman policies toward Venice. Fatima’s brother was beheaded in 1603 during a
riot against the sultan. Yet whatever doubts Christians and Muslims had about the
sincerity of her conversion, Fatima remained in the Ottoman Empire for the next
decade until her death. Fatima’s Venetian will left her considerable properties there to
local Christian religious charities (her son in Venice was childless); what happened to
her wealth in Istanbul remains unknown.
Perhaps in Venetian eyes Fatima counted as a renegade, no matter how friendly she
and her brother remained to Venetian interests. Fatima spent much of her later life as
a privileged inhabitant of a seraglio who zealously defended her legal rights back in
Venice. Married at least three times, her move to Istanbul solved the problem of an
unhappy marriage, and eventually one son involuntarily came to Istanbul, where he
too converted and joined the government. All the big boundaries appear in her tale:
Christian and Muslim identities, a patriotic Venetian who “turned Turk” in the after-
math of the battle of Lepanto, a family life complicated by violence and unhappiness.
No one has as yet discovered any letters or works written by Fatima, so her story,