The Gold of Mali: Mansa Musa and the Medieval Imagination of Africa

CYCLE: Geopolitics
SPEAKER: Franco Cardini
DATE: November 3, 2025 - 5:00 p.m.
WHERE: Parco archeologico del Colosseo, Curia Iulia

The figure of Mansa Musa, ruler of Mali in the 14th century, fascinated chroniclers and travelers, who made him an emblem of fabulous wealth and distant power. His pilgrimage to Mecca and his presence in medieval maps became symbols of an Africa at once real and imagined. This lecture explores the sources and representations that built the myth of Mansa Musa in the Middle Ages.

Franco Cardini is Professor Emeritus of Medieval History at the Italian Institute of Human Sciences (SUM) and the University of Florence. A specialist in crusades, pilgrimages, and relations between Europe, Islam, and the Mediterranean world, he has published numerous volumes translated into several languages and is among the most authoritative and renowned Italian historians for the general public.

Free admission subject to availability.

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