Lorenz Fries (c. 1490 – 1531) was a German cartographer, cosmographer, astrologer, and physician based in Strasbourg. Little is known of Fries' early life. He may have studied in Padua, Piacenza, Montpellier and Vienna, but strong evidence of this is unfortunately lacking. The first recorded mention of Fries appeared on a 1513 Nuremberg broadside. Fries settled in Strasbourg in March 1519, where he developed a relationship with the St. Die scholars, including Walter Lud, Martin Ringmann and Martin Waldseemüller. There he also befriended the printer and publisher Johann Grüninger. Although his primary profession was as a doctor, from roughly 1520 to 1525 he worked closely with Grüninger as the geographic editor of various maps and atlases based upon the work of Martin Waldseemüller. Although his role is unclear, his first map seems to have been a 1520 reissue of Waldseemüller's world map of 1507. Around this time he also began working on Grüninger's reissue of Waldseemüller's 1513 edition of Ptolemy, Geographie Opus Novissima. That edition included three new maps by Fries based upon the Waldseemüller world map of 1507 – two of these, his maps of East Asia and Southeast Asia are quite significant as the first specific maps of these regions issued by a European publisher. In 1525 Fries decided to leave Strasbourg and surrendered his citizenship, relocating to Trier. In 1528 he moved to Basel. Afterwards he relocated to Metz where he most likely died. In addition to his cartographic work, Fries published tracts on medicine, religion, and astrology. More by this mapmaker...

Marino Sanudo (or Sanuto) Torsello (c. 1270 – 1343) was a Venetian statesman and geographer. He is best known for his efforts to instigate a new crusade to the Holy Land. This lifelong task resulted in his book, 'Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis (Book of Secrets for True Crusaders) which would be supplented by an array of the earliest surviving portolan charts of the Mediterranean coast and the Black Sea, executed by Pietro Vesconte. Sanudo was born to an aristocratic trading family in Venice around 1270; his father was a member of the Venetian Senate. In his youth Sanuto traveled broadly, visiting in time Acre, Greece, Romania, Palestine, Egypt, Armenia, Cyprus and Rhodes. He would eventually join the entourage of the Doge of Venice; after 1305 he attended Cardinal Riccardo Petroni in Rome.

He was a vigorous correspondent, particularly with travelers whose reach had extended beyond his own.

Perhaps related to his early experiences in Acre - which fell rapidly to Muslim forces shortly after his visit there - Sanuto was a lifelong advocate of a crusade to capture the Holy Lands for the west. While he was certainly not alone among such instigators, his emphasis on strategy, practical financial backing, and detailed modern cartography set his proposals apart. His long term approach - with a preparatory blockade of and capture of Egypt to secure the invasion's flank - was never implemented. Nevertheless his book, often revised and updated, would find its way into the hands of not only the Pope but also King Charles IV of France. At least eleven manuscript copies are known to survive. Its complement of maps by Vesconte are the earliest medieval maps intended for military purposes. Learn More...

Pietro Vesconte (fl. 1310-1330) was a Genoese cartographer and geographer. His early portolan charts set the standard for such works produced in both Italy and Spain throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Very little is known of his life. He was born in Genoa, but produced the bulk of his work in Venice. His charts - among the first of any to be signed and dated - remain among the earliest to accurately chart the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea; his works contain some of the earliest attempts to chart the British Isles. In addition to his separate charts, he is known to have authored no fewer than four manuscript navigational 'atlases,' consisting of particular navigational charts that could be joined to make a larger, general one. His work was groundbreaking in its accuracy: the mappamundae that characterize this period were not characterized by precision, being more in the way of mnemonic aids for the study of the world by people unlikely to actually travel it. Many of his works, however, focused on the Holy Land, and these were produced in order to encourage a crusade to those regions. Learn More...