Spanish literature on North Africa in the XVI century: Diego de Torres

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Periodical article

Title:	Spanish literature on North Africa in the XVI century: Diego de Torres
Author:	Garcia-Arenal, Mercedes
Year:	1983
Periodical:	Maghreb Review
Volume:	8
Issue:	1-2
Pages:	53-59
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Spain Morocco
Subjects:	historical sources history 1500-1599
Abstract:	During the first two thirds of the XVIth century the politics of intervention of the Spanish and Portuguese in Africa provoked an abundance of contemporary literature about various Islamic peoples and regions. With the disappearance of the economic interest and the military threat in the last third of the century, the necessity of acquiring 'scientific' knowledge about the Maghreb also disappeared. Works which in their time were printed and reprinted, and also translated into other languages are not used today in studies and the material they contain is rarely appreciated properly or taken advantage of. This is exemplified to the extreme by the three authors universally considered as the classics of their genre: Luis des Mármol Carvajal, Diego de Torres, and Diego de Haedo. The most unfortunate of these three has been Diego de Torres, despite the fact that his work has long been acknowledged as a first-rate source for the study of Morocco in the first three quarters of the XVIth century and, in particular, for the origins of the Sharifi Dynasty of the Sa'dis. Notes.