Cristoforo Buondelmonti

Cristoforo Buondelmonti (c. 1385 – c. 1430) was an Italian Franciscan priest, traveler, and was a pioneer in promoting first-hand knowledge of Greece and its antiquities throughout the Western world.

He was taught Greek by the Italian scholar Guarino da Verona and received further education from Niccolò Niccoli, an influential Florentine humanist.

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).

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, Buondelmonti bought a Greek manuscript and brought it back with him to Italy.