An ordinary man. An extraordinary journey.

In 1394 Nicola Martoni made a dangerous journey from a small town in Italy to Jerusalem. He wrote a diary in Latin. It’s an extraordinary insight into the life and mind of an ordinary man. This translation keeps it as fresh and alive as the original.

Nicola Martoni was a little, short-sighted, middle-aged provincial lawyer. He sailed through Aegean storms to Egypt, walked across the desert in high summer, climbed Mount Sinai with malaria, and finally made it to the Holy Places. Five companions died on the way.

After venerating the sites of the Holy Land he was desperate to get home. He wandered across the Mediterranean from island to island and through mainland Greece. He records more storms, shipwreck, pirates, mercenaries and brigands. Curiosity, determination and faith in God sustained him in his enthralling and eventful journey.

It was an age of marvels and miracles, before printing and the intellectual and scientific revolutions that shape our world. Martoni’s journal gives us a rare insight into the medieval world and its people.

Join him on his journey.