SANUDO, MARINO il VECCHIO. - Venetian traveller and politician, b. c. 1270 to Marco, of the S. Severo branch, d. c. 1343.
From his youth he travelled extensively in the eastern Mediterranean; later he ventured as far as the northern seas of Europe. He must be counted among the theorists of the Crusade, which he conceived as a defence of Western Christendom and a safeguard of Venetian interests. In 1309 he began to draft the Conditiones Terrae Sanctae; on 22 Sept. 1321 he presented to Giovanni XXII at Avignone the Opus Terrae Sanctae in 3 books, which subsequently became, in 1321–23, the Liber secretorum fidelium fidei, to which he gave wide circulation; but political events and the discord among princes prevented any practical implementation of his plans. In 1328–33 he composed a History of Romania, known in an Italian translation, which includes the history of the Vespers and Italian events down to the end of the 13th century. The manuscripts are furnished with geographical maps.