Giovanni de' Marignolli: An Italian Prelate at the Court of the South-East Asian Queen of Sheba

Abstract

The year 1338 was the occasion of a great event in the life of a certain John of Florence, for in December of that year he set out from Avignon on a journey that was to take him, in his capacity of Papal Legate, to the court of the Great Khan of Cathay in Peking. This Franciscan Friar of aristocratic Florentine lineage is best known to us under the name John Marignolli, sometimes Giovanni de' Marignola, and his importance for the history of South-East Asia lies in the fact that, like Marco Polo, he made his return voyage from China not by the Central Asian overland route again but by sea through the Indies and, what is more, though passing through many perils, survived to tell the tale.