Claudius Clavus

Claudius Clavus (Suartho) also known as Nicholas Niger, (Danish: Claudius Claussøn Swart), (born 14 September 1388), was a Danish geographer sometimes considered to be the first Nordic cartographer.

[1][2] It is believed that he was born in the village of Salling on the Danish island of Funen.

In 1412–13 at the age of 25 he started to travel around Europe and appeared eleven years later (1423–24) in Rome.

In Rome he became friends with the cardinal Giordano Orsini and the pope's secretary Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, who were among those working to update the old Roman cartography.

Most of his work (including two maps) is lost, but a copy has been preserved through the German cartographers Donnus Nicholas Germanus and Henricus Martellus Germanus, and in the nineteenth century more texts were rediscovered in the imperial library at Vienna.