Leland, John (c. 1506–1552) English antiquary and poet
Leland was born in London and educated there at St.
Paul’s School and at Oxford and Paris. He was keeper of li-
braries under HENRY VIIIand became the king’s antiquary
in 1533 with permission to search England’s colleges,
monasteries, and cathedrals for ancient documents, of
which he made an invaluable collection. First results of
his six-year tour of research were presented to Henry and
published (1549) by his friend John BALE, though his full
Itinerary only appeared in 1710–12 (9 vols, ed. Thomas
Hearne). Leland also wrote some proficient Latin poems
and a defense of the Arthurian legends, Assertio inclytis-
simi Arthuri (1544).
Leo X (1475–1521) Pope (1513–21)
Born Giovanni de’ Medici at Florence, the second son of
Lorenzo de’ MEDICI(“the Magnificent”), he received a hu-
manistic education from Marsilio FICINO, POLITIAN, and
PICO DELLA MIRANDOLAand studied canon law at Pisa
(1489–91). In 1492 he became a cardinal and went to live
in Rome. Lorenzo’s death recalled him to Florence the
same year, but he was exiled with the rest of his family
(1494). After traveling in Europe he returned to Rome
(1500) and in 1503 he became the head of the Medici fam-
ily. The revolution of 1512 allowed the Medici to return to
Florence and in 1513, aged only 37, Giovanni was elected
pope. He was thus able to gratify his humanistic tastes, pa-
tronizing scholars and artists and spending papal wealth
lavishly on the construction of St. Peter’s and on the accu-
mulation of books and manuscripts. Foremost among the
artists was RAPHAEL, who was his architect for St. Peter’s
from 1514, as well as designing the Acts of the Apostles se-
ries of tapestries for the Sistine Chapel (c. 1515–19), and
painting Leo’s portrait (c. 1518). Leo surrounded himself
with prominent humanists: among his secretaries were
BEMBO and SADOLETO, and Cardinal BIBBIENA was his
treasurer-general. His patronage of music was no less no-
table, and he himself played and composed. In 1520 he
had more than 15 musicians in his private service; the
French composer Elzéar Genet was in charge of music for
the papal chapel, and the madrigal composer Costanzo
FESTAand the lutenist Gian Maria Giudeo were also on his
payroll.
One of Leo’s concerns was the removal of foreign in-
fluence from Italy; this was initially achieved by the vic-
tory of Novara (1513) over the French, but the death of
LOUIS XIIwith the accession of FRANCIS Ibrought fresh
hostilities. These were resolved through negotiation; by
the Bull Primitiva (1516) relations between the French
monarchy and the papacy were regulated and the concor-
dat agreed at Bologna that year remained in force until
- The most significant event of Leo’s papacy was the
attack by LUTHERon the Roman Catholic Church, inspired
by the sale of INDULGENCESto cover the ever-increasing
costs of the papacy. Leo excommunicated Luther in 1521,
and one of his last acts was to confer the title “Defender of
the Faith” on HENRY VIIIof England for his stance against
Luther.
Further reading: Silvio A. Bedini, The Pope’s Elephant
(Austin, Texas: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Cen-
ter, 1997; repr. New York: Penguin USA, 2000).Leo Africanus (c. 1494–c. 1552) Spanish-born Moroccan
traveler
Born Hasan Ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan in Granada, he ac-
companied his family to Fez while still very young. There
they were well received at the sultan’s court, and after
studying law and theology the young man accompanied
his uncle on an embassy to Timbuktu (c. 1510). Some
years later, another journey encompassed Timbuktu again,
also Gao, Bornu, and Egypt. Appointed an ambassador by
the sultan, he went to Constantinople, visiting Tlemcen,
Algiers, and Tunis, and then on to Turkey by sea. On the
way back, after spending some time in Egypt, he was
heading for Morocco in 1518 when the ship he was on was
attacked by Sicilian pirates, who took him prisoner and
handed him over to Pope LEO X. After a year’s imprison-
ment in Castel Sant’Angelo, he converted to Christianity,
and was baptized in 1520 by the pope himself, who gave
him his own names Giovanni Leone (Joannes Leo) de’
Medici. From that date he was also known as Leo
Africanus. He taught Arabic in Rome, and while there
wrote, in Italian, his most famous book, the Descrittione
dell’ Africa, which was published in Giovanni Battista RA-
MUSIO’s Navigationi e viaggi (1550) and translated into
French (1556), Latin (1556), and English (1600). In 1529
he returned to Africa, settling in Tunis, where he died.
His life intrigued his contemporaries and continued
to exert a grip on the imaginations of later writers, in-
cluding W. B. Yeats and Amin Maalouf; the latter’s best-
selling novel, Léon l’Africain (1986; in English as Leo the
African (1988)) is a fictionalized autobiography of Leo. He
is sometimes said to be the inspiration behind Shake-
speare’s Othello.León, Fray Luis de See LUIS DE LEÓN, FRAYLeonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian painter
Giorgio VASARIjustly began the third part of his Lives of the
Painters (the High Renaissance section) with Leonardo,
commenting that the artist “endowed his figures with mo-
tion and breath.” Leonardo was born at Anchiano, the il-
legitimate child of a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant
woman, Caterina. By 1469 Leonardo, his father, and step-
mother, had moved to Florence, where, because of his ap-
titude in drawing, Leonardo was apprenticed to the studio
of VERROCCHIO. He became a member of guild of St. Luke
in 1472; about the same time he painted portions of Ver-
rocchio’s Baptism of Christ (Uffizi, Florence). The kneeling
angel in the left foreground displays the young artist’s22774 4 LLeellaanndd,, JJoohhnn