Jacques Bongars (1554 - July 29, 1612) was a French scholar and diplomat. Born in Orléans nand raised as a Huguenot, he would receive most of his early education in Germany before returning to Orléans and Bourges. He joined the service of Ségur Pardaillan, a courtier to Henry, king of Navarre (later Henry IV of France.) Pardaillan sent him in 1587 on a mission to northern Europe, and later England to obtain help from Queen Elizabeth for Henry of Navarre. He continued to travel on behalf of Henry, and to the detriment of the house of Habsburg. His service continued until the king's murder in 1610. He died in Paris not long after. Bongars produced several books, including Gesta Dei per Francos, a collection of early works pertaining to the Crusades, with a particular focus on French participation in them. 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...