Natalie Zemon Davis

The clever peasant Arnaud du Tilh had almost persuaded the learned judges at the Parlement of Toulouse when, on a summer's day in 1560, a man swaggered into the court on a wooden leg, denounced Arnaud, and reestablished his claim to the identity, property, and wife of Martin Guerre. The astonishing case captured the imagination of the continent. Told and...

Captured by Christian pirates in the Mediterranean and imprisoned by the Pope, then released, baptized, and allowed a European life of scholarship as the Christian writer Giovanni Leone, Al-Hasan al-Wazzan - or Leo Africanus - is a celebrated but hitherto elusive figure. Here, in Trickster Travels, distinguished historian Natalie Zemon Davis offers a virtuoso study of the fragmentary, partial, and...