Jacques Bongars

Jacques Bongars was a French diplomat and scholar. He is most well-known for chronicling the history of the Crusades. Bongars acted as a diplomat for the French King, Henry IV and was sent on missions around Europe. Bongars’ work reflects the sixteenth century fascination with reviving the Crusades; he created a mappa mundi-portolan hybrid map based on the fourteenth century mapmaker, Pietro Vesconte’s nautical charts. In the map, Jerusalem is placed in the centre. This reflects the early Christian belief that the Holy Land was at the centre of the Earth.