Marino Sanuto was born in Venice around 1270 to the Sanudos, an aristocratic trading family active in the eastern Mediterranean, of which a branch had settled in the Aegean on the island of Naxos shortly after the Fourth Crusade and founded the Duchy of the Archipelago.

As a teenager he stayed in Acre, a thriving commercial port and the final stronghold of the Crusader states before falling to a Malmuk siege in 1291.

Among his correspondents were Guglielmo Bernardi de Furvo, a Venetian nobleman who had travelled extensively in Muslim and Mongol lands, Bishop Jerome of Kaffa, in the Crimea, who in 1312 had been sent to reinforce the Catholic mission in China, and Andronikos II Palaiologos, the Emperor of Byzantium.

Opinions varied on preparations and implementation but Sanuto's plan placed more emphasis on a sophisticated military strategy and reliable financial backing as keys to a successful campaign.

[4] The first version of his treatise, Secreta fidelium crucis (Secrets for True Crusaders), was written between 1306 and 1307 and presented to Pope Clement V. Over the years he continued to revise and expand his manuscript, adding a history of the Holy Lands to 1307 and a geography of the Levant.

[6] Another distinguishing feature of his crusade treatise was the inclusion of a set of maps depicting the Eastern Mediterranean, Arabia, Egypt, the Black Sea, Italy, and Western Europe.

"[7] At one time, Sanuto was thought to have been the creator of these maps but further study has shown that Pietro Vesconte, a Genoese cartographer, was the primary author.