Jacopo Russo

Jacopo Russo was a Sicilian Renaissance mapmaker. His portolan maps were highly illustrated, often depicting local cities and rulers.

He authored a 1520 portolan, made in Messina, incorporating such illustrated map. He also created a Mansa Musa Map circa 1525, a Nautical chart of the Mediterranean now in The British Library (Add. MS 31318B). This map was created for Mansa Musa, the ruler of Mali, then one of the most powerful Muslim kingdoms of Saharan Africa. This map is well in the tradition of Italian portolan map, but is remarkable for the considerable weight it gives to northern Africa.

Two of his maps dated 1564 and 1588 from the Biblioteca Trivulziana in Milan were lost in the bombing raids of the Second World War.