MARIGNOLLI, GIOVANNI DE', a notable traveller to the Far East in the 14th century, born probably before 1290, and sprung from a noble family in Florence. In 2338 there arrived at Avignon, where Benedict XII. held his court, an embassy from the great khan of Cathay (the Mongol-Chinese emperor), bearing letters to the pontiff from the khan himself, and from certain Christian nobles of the Alan race in his service, who asked for a priest. The pope replied to the letters, and appointed four ecclesi astics as his legates to the khan's court. The name of John of Florence, i.e., Marignolli, appears third on the letters of com mission. A large party was associated with the four chief envoys; when in Peking the embassy still numbered thirty-two, out of an original fifty.
The mission left Avignon in December 1338; picked up the Tatar envoys at Naples ; and travelled via Constantinople and the Black Sea to the court of Mohammed Uzbeg, khan of the Golden Horde, at Sarai on the Volga. The khan entertained them hos pitably during the winter of 1339-1340 and then sent them across the steppes to Armalec, Almalig or Almaligh (Kulja), the north ern seat of the house of Chaghatai, in what is now the province of Ili. "There," says Marignolli, "we built a church, bought a piece of ground . . . sung masses, and baptized several persons, notwithstanding that only the year before the bishop and six other minor friars had there undergone glorious martyrdom for Christ's salvation." Quitting Almaligh in 1341, they seem to have reached Peking (by way of Kamul or Hami) in May or June 1342. They were well received by the reigning khan, the last of the Mongol dynasty in China. An entry in the Chinese annals fixes the year of Marignolli's presentation by its mention of the arrival of the great horses from the kingdom of Fulang (Farang or Europe), one of which was 11 ft. 6 in. in length and 6 ft. 8 in. high, and black all over.
Marignolli stayed at Peking or Cambalec three or four years, after which he travelled through eastern China to Zayton or Amoy Harbour, quitting China apparently in December and reaching Columbum (Kaulam or Quilon in Malabar) in Easter week of 1348. He returned home by way of a circuitous
route, reaching Avignon in 1353, where he delivered a letter from the great khan to Pope Innocent VI. In the following year the emperor Charles IV., on a visit to Italy, made Marignolli one of his chaplains. Soon after, the pope made him bishop of Bisig nano ; but be appears to have accompanied the emperor to Prague in in 1356 he is found acting as envoy to the pope from Florence ; and in 1357 he is at Bologna. The date of his death is unknown.
Nobody seems to have noticed the fragmentary notes left by Marignolli of his journeys interpolated in his Annals of Bohemia, compiled by order of the emperor, till 1768, when the chronicle was published in vol. ii. of the Monumenta hist. Bohemiae nus quam antehac edita by Father Gelasius Dobner.