Cristoforo Buondelmonti (1386 - c. 1430) was an Italian monk and traveler, and a pioneer in promoting first-hand knowledge of Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 and its antiquities throughout the Western world.

He left his native city of Florence around 1414 in order to travel, mainly in the Greek islands. He visited Constantinople in the 1420's. He is the author of 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 last one contains the oldest surviving map of Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

, and the only one which antedates the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453.

He died c. 1430.

Sources

• G. Gerola, “Le vedute di Costantinopoli di Cristoforo Buondemonti,” SBN 3 (1931): 247–79.