Cristoforo Buondelmonti () was an Italian Franciscan priest, traveler, and was a pioneer in promoting first-hand knowledge of

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

and its antiquities throughout the Western world.

Biography

Cristoforo Buondelmonti was born around 1385 into an important Florentine family. He was taught Greek by the Italian scholar

Guarino da Verona Guarino Veronese or Guarino da Verona (1374 – 14 December 1460) was an Italian classical scholar, humanist, and translator of ancient Greek texts during the Renaissance. In the republics of Florence and Venice he studied under Manuel Chryso ...

and received further education from Niccolò Niccoli, an influential Florentine humanist. By 1414 he had become a priest and served as a rector of a church in Florence.Gothoni 2003 Buondelmonti left his native city around 1414 in order to travel. While travels were mainly focused in the Aegean Islands, he visited

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

in the 1420s. He went on to author two historical-geographic works: the ''Descriptio insulae Cretae'' (1417, in collaboration with Niccolò Niccoli) and the ''Liber insularum Archipelagi'' (1420). These two books are a combination of geographical information and contemporary charts and sailing directions. The latter one contains the oldest surviving map of Constantinople, and the only one which antedates the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453. While travelling over the island of

Andros Andros (, ) is the northernmost island of the Greece, Greek Cyclades archipelago, about southeast of Euboea, and about north of Tinos. It is nearly long, and its greatest breadth is . It is for the most part mountainous, with many fruitful and ...

, Buondelmonti bought a Greek manuscript and brought it back with him to Italy. This later became known as the '' Hieroglyphica'' of

Horapollo Horapollo (from Horus Apollo; ) (5th century?) is the supposed author of a treatise, titled ''Hieroglyphica'', on Egyptian hieroglyphs, extant in a Byzantine Greek language, Greek translation by one Philippus, also dating to 5th century. Life Hora ...

, which played a considerable role both in humanistic thinking and in art. File:Buondelmonti, Cristoforo – Liber insularum Arcipelagi, 16th-century – BEIC 14666142.jpg, ''Liber insularum Arcipelagi'', 16th-century manuscript. Paris,

Bibliothèque Nationale de France The (; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites, ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository of all that is published in France. Some of its extensive collections, including bo ...

, Fonds latin.

References

Sources

* * * * *G. Gerola, "Le vedute di Costantinopoli di Cristoforo Buondelmonti," SBN 3 (1931): 247–79. *Cristoforo Buondelmonti, 1386 births 1430s deaths Clergy from Florence Italian travel writers Italian male non-fiction writers 15th-century Italian writers 15th-century travelers 15th-century travel writers 15th-century Italian cartographers Writers from Florence Cristoforo {{Italy-writer-stub

Biography

See also

References

Sources