Fra Mauro

Fra Mauro (c. 1400–1459) was a Camaldolese monk and cartographer at San Michele monastery on Murano. In his youth he travelled as a merchant and soldier and became familiar with the Middle East, and he later ran a mapmaking workshop, questioning returning merchants.

Around 1450 he finished his great circular world map, made for the rulers of Venice and Portugal. More than two metres across and covered with thousands of notes, it was the most detailed world map of its age and put accuracy above biblical geography, without Jerusalem at its centre.