ABSTRACT
It may seem strange to use Buondelmonti’s works in a study of the ideology of the Holy War at the end of the Middle Ages. Cristoforo Buondelmonti was a traveller, a cartographer, more preoccupied with legends and the discovery of antiquities than by the actual situation of the lands he visited. However, many factors led him to take up a precise attitude towards the events of his time: his knowledge of the Greek language, the lengthy period he spent in the Aegean at a time when the Turks were advancing steadily through the Balkan peninsula while western powers, mainly Genoa and Venice, were engaged in conflicts that prevented their joining forces to protect the Byzantine Empire and their trading posts in the Eastern Mediterranean. All this contributed to Buondelmonti’s experiences of travelling in a disturbed world, and the posing of questions: who was responsible for the decay of the minor islands in the Aegean, where damage by pirates and Turkish incursions provoked ruins and depopulation? But exact knowledge of Buondelmonti’s attitude is very difficult to achieve, for only a few aspects of his life are clear from his works, and confusion among manuscripts and illustrated maps does not help to distinguish Buondelmonti’s own writings from those of the copyists and cartographers who added many details to the originals long after Buondelmonti wrote.
