ODORIC (c. 1286-1331), styled "of Pordenone," one of the chief travellers of the later middle ages, and a Beatus of the Roman Church, was born at Villa Nuova, a hamlet near the town of Pordenone in Friuli, in or about 5286. According to the eccle siastical biographers, in early years he took the vows of the Franciscan order and joined their convent at Udine, the capital of Friuli.
Friar Odoric was despatched to the East, where a remarkable extension of missionary action was then taking place, about 1316-18, and did not return till the end of 1329 or beginning of 1330. He was in western India soon after 1321 (pretty certainly in 1322) and he spent three years in China between the opening of 1323 and the close of 1328. His route to the East lay by Tre bizond and Erzerum to Tabriz and Sultanieh, in all of which places the order had houses. From Sultanieh he proceeded by Kasha!). and Yazd, and turning thence followed a devious route by Persepolis and the Shiraz and Baghdad regions, to the Persian gulf. At Hormuz he embarked for India, landing at Thana, near Bombay. After visiting many parts of India he sailed in a junk to Sumatra, visiting various ports on the northern coast of that island, and thence to Java, to the coast (it would seem) of Borneo, to Champa (South Cochin-China), and to Canton, at that time known to western Asiatics as Chin-Kalan or Great China (Maha chin). He travelled extensively in China, and visited Hangchow, then renowned, under the name of Cansay, Khanzai, or Quinsai (i.e., Kingsze or royal residence), as the greatest city in the world, of whose splendours Odoric gives details.
At Peking he remained for three years, attached, no doubt, to one of the churches founded by Archbishop John of Monte Corvino, at this time in extreme old age. Returning overland across Asia, through the Land of Prester John and through Casan, the adventurous traveller seems to have entered Tibet, and even perhaps to have visited Lhasa. He then returned to Venice via Persia and Asia Minor. During a part at least of these long jour neys the companion of Odoric was Friar James, an Irishman. After his return Odoric went to the Minorite house attached to St. Anthony's at Padua, and there, in May 1330, he related the
story of his travels, which was taken down in homely Latin by Friar William of Solagna. Odoric died at Udine on Jan. 14, 1331. The fame of his vast journeys appears to have made a much greater impression on the laity of his native territory than on his Franciscan brethren.
Popular acclamation made him an object of devotion, the muni cipality erected a noble shrine for his body, and his fame as saint and traveller had spread far and wide before the middle of the century, but it was not till four centuries later (1755) that he was formally beatified.
Odoric's credit was not benefited by the liberties which Sir John Mandeville took with it. The substance of that knight's alleged travels in India and Cathay is stolen from Odoric, though amplified with fables from other sources and from his own in vention, and garnished with his own unusually clear astronomical notions. There are many details in Odoric's narrative which prove its genuineness.
The best editions of Odoric are by G. Venni, Elogio storico alle gesta del Beato Odorico (Venice, 1761) ; H. Yule in Cathay and the Way Thither (1866), vol. i., pp. vol. ii. appendix, pp. 1-42, and H. Cordier, Les Voyages . . . du . . . frere Odoric . . . (1891) (edition of Old French version of c. 135o) . The edition by T. Domeni chelli (Prato, 1880 may also be mentioned ; likewise those texts of Odoric embedded in the Storia universale delle Missione Franc scane, iii. 739-781, and in Hakluyt's Principal Navigation (1599) ; ii. 39-67. See also John of Viktring (Joannes Victoriensis) in Fontes rerum Germanicarum, ed. J. F. Boehmer ; vol. i. ed. by J. G. Cotta (Stuttgart, , P. 391 ; Wadding, Annales Minorum, A.D. 1331, vol. vii., pp. Bartholomew Albizzi, Opus conformitatum . . . B. Francisci . . 'bk. i. par. ii. conf. 8 (fol. 124 of Milan ed. of 1513) John of Winterthur in Eccard, Corpus historicum medii aevi, vol. i. cols. especially 1894 ; C. R. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography (1897, etc.), iii. 250-287, 554, 565-566, 612-613, etc.