Marino Sanuto the Elder

thumb| Marino Sanuto Torsello (c. 1270–1343) was a Venetian statesman and geographer. He is best known for his lifelong attempts to revive the crusading spirit and movement; with this objective he wrote his Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis ('The Book of the Secrets of the Faithful of the Cross') Quotes Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis (1321) At the end of Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 9 In the year 1321, I had an audience of our lord the pope, and presented him two books on the recovery of the Holy Land, and safety of the faithful; one bound in red, the other in yellow. At the same time I brought under his notice four geographical maps, one of the Mediterranean Sea, another of the land and sea, the third of the Holy Land, the fourth of Egypt. Reported in Jules Michelet, History of France, tr. G. H. Smith (New York, 1882), vol. i, p. 408 Partitur autem totale opus ad honorem Sanctæ Trinitatis in tres libros. Nam sicut infirmanti corpori . . . . tria impertiri curamus: primo, syrupum ad præviam dispositionem; . . . . secundo, congruam medicinam quæ morbum expellat; . . . . tertio, ad conservandam sanitatem debitum vitæ regimen. . . . Sic conformiter continet liber primus dispositionem quasi syrupum, etc. The reason...for...dividing his book into three parts in honor of the Holy Trinity is that there are three principal things to be looked to for the re-establishment of the health of the body — the preparatory sirup, the medicine, and good regimen. Reported in Michelet (1882), vol. i, p. 408 It is essential, either that all access to Egypt be completely prevented, or that it be thrown so thoroughly open that all may go, return, and trade freely through the soldan's territories: and on the latter alternative, that the thought of recovering the Holy Land be entirely given up. . . . But, it may be said, if the soldan should divert the Nile from the Mediterranean into the Red Sea? The thing is impossible; and, if it could be effected, Egypt would be ruined and become a desert. . . . . The soldan reduced, the fortresses on the Egyptian coast will become a sure asylum for the Christian nations, just as the lagunes of the Adriatic were for the Venetians, which, throughout the tempests of the Gallic, African, and Lombard invasions, and that of Attila, have remained inviolate. Part iii, ch. 2. Reported in Michelet (1882), vol. i, p. 408 External links Category:1270s births Category:1340s deaths Category:People from Venice Category:Non-fiction authors from Italy Category:Geographers Category:People of the Crusades