Early Modern Dialogue with Islam: Antonio de Sosa's Topography of Algiers (1612)

by Antonio de Sosa, María Antonia Garcés, Diana de Armas Wilson

Overview

An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam: Antonio de Sosa’sTopography of Algiers (1612) makes available in translation a riveting sixteenth-century chronicle of European and North African cultural contacts that is virtually unknown to English-speaking readers. The Topography was written by a Portuguese cleric, Doctor Antonio de Sosa, who was captured by Algerian corsairs in 1577 and held as a Barbary slave for over four years while awaiting ransom. Sosa's work is a fascinating description of a city at the crossroads of civilizations, with a sophisticated multilingual population of Turks, Arabs, Moriscos, Berbers, Jews, Christian captives, and converts to Islam from across the world.

In the Topography of Algiers, Sosa meticulously describes the inhabitants' daily lives; their fashions, pastimes, feasts, and funerals; their government; the landmarks of the city itself; and much more. Readers will be struck by the vibrancy of his narrative, rendered into English with crisp accuracy by Diana de Armas Wilson. The Topography is a treasure trove of amazing customs, startling behavior, and historical anecdotes that will enthrall readers. The extensive introduction by María Antonia Garcés is a superb archival study of the Mediterranean world described by the Topography, as well as an exposé of the adventurous, even scandalous, life of its author. The introduction also discusses the fraudulent publication of Sosa’s Topography under another man’s name.

Sosa's chronicle stands out for its complexity, vitality, and the sharpness of the author's ethnographic vision. No other account of captivity in this period offers such a detailed and dynamic tableau of Algerian society at the end of the sixteenth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780268029784
Publisher:	University of Notre Dame Press
Publication date:	04/15/2011
Series:	History, Languages, and Cultures of the Spanish and Portuguese Worlds
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Diana de Armas Wilson is professor emerita of English at the University of Denver.

Dr. Antonio de Sosa, 1538-1587, was a Spanish priest who after being enslaved in Algiers became the first biographer of Miguel de Cervantes. As a captive he wrote Philip II constantly begging him to pay his ransom and included detailed reports on the ports and ramparts of Algiers—which were included in the Typografia.

María Antonia Garcés is professor of Hispanic Studies at Cornell University.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xi

Transliteration and Translation xiii

Note from the Translator xv

Acknowledgments xix

Introduction 1

Topography of Algiers Antonio de Sosa

Title Page from Diego de Haedo, Topographia, e Historia general de Argel 81

Preliminary Materials 83

Appraisal 83

The King 84

Approval by the Court's Designated Censor 86

Approval by the Superior of the Benedictine Order 87

License of the General of Saint Benedict 88

Dedicatory Letter 89

List of Errata 92

Chapter 1 The Founding of Algiers 93

Chapter 2 Why the City Is Called Algiers 99

Chapter 3 Algiers as a Muslim Kingdom 100

Chapter 4 How Algiers Came under the Turks 102

Chapter 5 The Ramparts of Algiers 104

Chapter 6 The Gates of Algiers 106

Chapter 7 The Fortifications of Algiers 109

Chapter 8 The Moat of Algiers 112

Chapter 9 The Castles and Forts outside Algiers 113

Chapter 10 The Houses and Streets of Algiers 117

Chapter 11 The Inhabitants and Neighbors of Algiers 119

Chapter 12 Turks 124

Chapter 13 Renegades 125

Chapter 14 Ka'ids 128

Chapter 15 Sipahi 131

Chapter 16 Janissaries 133

Chapter 17 Agha of the Janissaries 135

Chapter 18 Ranks of the Janissaries 137

Chapter 19 Customs of the Janissaries at War 141

Chapter 20 Customs of the Janissaries in Peacetime 146

Chapter 21 Customs of the Algerian Corsairs 151

Chapter 22 Catalogue of Corsairs 160

Chapter 23 Corsairs with Frigates 162

Chapter 24 Algerian Merchants 164

Chapter 25 Algerian Laborers and Artisans 168

Chapter 26 Algerian Fashions 169

Chapter 27 The Marabouts of Algiers 174

Chapter 28 The Jews of Algiers 181

Chapter 29 Languages and Currencies 184

Chapter 30 Marriage Ceremonies 188

Chapter 31 Childbirth and Child Rearing 194

Chapter 32 Algerian Women's Fashions 198

Chapter 33 Women's Pastimes, Home Decorating, and Cooking 203

Chapter 34 Islamic Feast Days and Festivals in Algiers 209

Chapter 35 A Miscellany of Muslim Customs in Algiers 216

Chapter 36 Algerian Vices 232

Chapter 37 Algerian Virtues 244

Chapter 38 Death and Burial in Algiers 247

Chapter 39 Algerian Buildings and Fountains 253

Chapter 40 The Natural Beauty of Algiers 261

Chapter 41 The Government of Algiers 265

List of Abbreviations 273

Glossary 274

Notes 287

Archival Sources 353

Bibliography 355

Index 381

Editorial Reviews

"Long overdue, this translation and edition of Sosa's Topografia is an absolute gem. Sixteenth-century Algiers was the Mediterranean’s cross-roads, a meeting point and melting-pot for Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Sosa's survey literally brings this important city to life. It is all there: architecture, economy and religion, plus pirates, renegades, slaves, marriage customs, and more. Little escapes Sosa’s eye, and this discerning friar even offers comments on such details as make-up and dress. There is no better source for understanding the human complexity of the early modern Mediterranean world, and both Armas—for the translation—and Garces—the introduction and notes—deserve credit for their masterful achievement. Scholars, students, and teachers, even the general reader will be forever in their debt." —Richard L. Kagan, Johns Hopkins University

"This is a truly significant text for all scholars of early modern Europe, worthy of their greatest interest and attention. When published, An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam: Antonio de Sosa’s Topography of Algiers (1612) will mark a watershed in our understanding of the synergies of power and the nature of shifting identities along the borderlands of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Europe; it will stand as an example of interdisciplinary and cross culture criticism at its best." —E. Michael Gerli, University of Virginia

"An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam: Antonio de Sosa's 'Topography of Algiers' (1612) edited by Maria Antonia Garces, translated by Diana de Armas Wilson . . . Translation and study of a work by a Portuguese cleric who was captured by Algerian corsairs in 1577 and held for more than four years in captivity, where he was a fellow prisoner of Cervantes' and became the latter's first biographer; documents Sosa's authorship of the Topografia, which was previously attributed to Diego de Haedo." —Chronicle of Higher Education

"Early modern historians are always pleased—indeed, excited—when they encounter firsthand descriptions and information regarding a particular society or country or, in this case, a prominent Mediterranean city: Algiers, a city that was literally a synthesis of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian inhabitants. Wilson (who did the translation) and Garcés (who did the introduction and detailed notes) have produced exactly that with Sosa's Topography of Algiers (1612). . . . Sosa's writings provide a fascinating, unmatched picture of one of the most important cities in the Mediterranean, and Wilson and Garcés have done a masterful job in making it available in English." —Choice

“In the growing scholarship on European perceptions of the Islamic Other and relations between Europe and the Ottoman Turks, Garces’s study and Armas Wilson’s translation offer an important . . . perspective from Iberia on the Mediterranean contact zone linking Christian Europe and Islamic North Africa. This outstanding translation and meticulously researched introductory study and edition will capture the attention of a wide range of scholars, including those pursuing research on the Moriscos of Spain exiled in North Africa, and those scholars seeking links between crosscultural Christian-Muslim interaction in the Mediterranean, and European–non-European exchanges in the New World.” —Renaissance Quarterly

“Equal parts history, ethnography, and literary work, the first book of Sosa’s Topograph is a welcome addition to the body of translated primary sources on Muslim, Christian, and Jewish encounters in the early modern Mediterranean . . . historians and literary scholars alike will find this edition to be a rich resource for the study of cross-cultural exchange in early modernity and will likely await with interest the next translated an annotated installments of Sosa’s Topographia, e Historia general de Argel.” —Sixteenth Century Journal

“[An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam] combines an extraordinarily erudite study with a long-due translation of the first part of the remarkable account of cultural, economic, social and political practices in Algiers, illuminating perceptions about North African renegades and the hardships of captivity at the time of Cervantes’s traumatic experience.” —This Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies

“The current political turmoil in the region and continuing controversies regarding Islam and the West render the publication of An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam all the more timely and, ultimately, of broader contemporary and thematic relevance to scholars, non-specialists, and students as well.” —Hispania

“An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam is two books in one: an indispensable historical resource for those interested in the early modern Mediterranean world, and a critical page turner, showing us the very best of what skilled, patient literary scholarship can produce.” —Modern Language Notes

“Two Cervantes scholars, María Antonia Garcés and Diana de Armas Wilson, have joined forces to prepare the first English edition and translation of Antonio de Sosa’s 1612 Topografia de Argel. This eyewitness view of the place and its people transports the reader to the North African city as Cervantes would have known it. . . . I commend both editor and translator for their sensitive and honest contextualization of the inter-religious rivalry that Sosa manifests.” —Cervantes

From the Publisher

"This interesting and important new book offers the first dedicated scholarly investigation into major movements of ecumenical contact among Anglicans and Orthodox between the First World War and the Second World War. Bryn Geffert draws on substantial archival work in English and Russian to write what he calls 'the story of efforts toward rapprochement by two churches and their ultimate failure to achieve formal unity of intercommunion.' . . . Above all, this is a cautionary tale about the difficulties inherent in connections among churches with very positive intentions but no ability to speak with one voice."

The Living Church