Ramusio, Giovanni Battista

Giovanni Battista Ramusio, (born July 20, 1485, Treviso, Republic of Venice [Italy]—died July 10, 1557, Padua), Italian geographer who compiled an important collection of travel writings, Delle navigationi et viaggi (1550–59; “Some Voyages and Travels”), containing his version of Marco Polo’s journey and the Descrittione de l’Africa (“Description of Africa”) by the Moor Leo Africanus.

Ramusio entered the Venetian public service and became secretary of the Senate in 1515 and of the Council of Ten in 1533. About 1520, at the suggestion of the humanist Girolamo Fracastoro, Ramusio began his tireless search for geographic narratives and documents. His principal collaborators and correspondents included Fracastoro, Cardinal Pietro Bembo, and the cartographer Giacomo Gastaldi. The first volume of the Navigationi, about Africa, appeared in 1550; the third, about America, appeared in 1557; the second, on Asia, appeared in 1559 and was the first to list Ramusio as editor.