The first printed example of Pietro Vesconte's medieval portolan chart of the world, the map accompanied Guibert de Nogent’s twelfth-century chronicle of the First Crusade, republished by the French Huguenot, 

 in 1611. 

A Genoese cartographer and geographer, Vesconte was a pioneer of the field of portolan charts who greatly influenced Italian and Catalan mapmaking throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He appears to have been the first professional mapmaker to sign and date his works regularly. This map was originally prepared for another account of the Crusades by the Venetian Marino Sanudo but is included here with Nogent’s chronicle as supplemental material in Bongars’ edition.   


Pietro Vesconte drew five maps for Marino Sanudo the Elder's ‘Liber secretorum fidelium crucis’, a treatise intended to inspire a revival in the Crusades, which included extensive accounts of trade, politics, and history. They are the first printed examples of Pietro Vesconte's medieval map of the world. The maps from Marino Sanudo the Elder early fourteenth-century manuscript atlas were reprinted by 

 in 1611. Sanudo planisphere is one of the few examples of medieval maps based on portolano sources in printed form (Shirley 2001). It is a circular map centred on Jerusalem with the Mediterranean relatively well defined. The ocean surrounds the whole of the known world, the outer parts of which are represented by conjecture. The authorship of Marino Sanudo is not definitely established and the original manuscript and has also been attributed to Pietro Vesconte.

It was not until 

' 'Gesta Dei per Francos' was published in 1611, as here, however, that the first true edition of Vesconte's map was printed.

Guibert de Nogent (died c. 1124) wrote a history of the First Crusade titled ‘Gesta Dei per Francos’ based on an anonymous eyewitness account called ‘Gesta Francorum’. Five centuries later the work was resurrected by 

 (1554–1612), a French scholar and diplomate who collected contemporaneous accounts of the Christian, crusades of the Middle Ages. Bongars’ compilation is a milestone in crusade historiography, used until the early nineteenth century by most serious crusade historians and, for some texts, still used today. 

The thirteen texts and fragments in Part 1 include most of the main narratives of the First Crusade supplied by Guibert de Nogent. Part 2 contains supplemental materials copied largely from a 1321 history and commercial analysis of the Crusader 

s by the Venetian Marino Sanudo Torsello, ‘Secreta Fidelium Crucis’. Accompanying Marino Sanudo the Elder's work are maps derived from Pietro Vesconte.  

In the fourteenth century, Pietro Vesconte drew five maps to accompany a treatise by Marino Sanudo the Elder, ‘Liber secretorum fidelium crucis’, intended to inspire a revival in the Crusades. In 1611 the treatise and its maps were republished by 

, a historian and enthusiast of Crusades literature. 

Vesconte's planisphere is one of the few examples of medieval maps based on portolan sources in printed form. It is a circular map centred on Jerusalem with the Mediterranean relatively well defined. The ocean surrounds the whole of the known world, the outer parts of which are represented by conjecture. 

Marino Sanudo the Elder (c. 1270–1343), was a widely travelled and well-educated Venetian statesman. In 1306 he started work on his 'Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis' (‘Book of Secrets of those Faithful to the Cross’) which he presented to Pope Clement V the next year as a manual for the true Crusader intent on reconquering the Holy Land. Sanuto advocates the destruction of Egypt and important Muslim strongholds, as well as cutting off trading and supply lines, of which he provides valuable sketches. Throughout the following decades, Sanuto greatly expanded his work, adding two new books, along with a large number of maps, charts and plans to illustrate his proposed strategies. The majority of these were by Pietro Vesconte, who had been responsible for some of the greatest portolan charts made at that time.


The first printed example of Pietro Vesconte's portolan map of the world, with Jerusalem at its centre. 

Vesconte's World Map, from Bongars' 'History of the Crusades'