MARIGNOLLI, ina'ren-yorle, Giovanni de', Italian traveler: b. Florence, probably about 1290; date of death unknown, but subsequent to 1357. Entering the priesthood, he was ap pointed one of the four legates sent by Bene dict XII to the great Khan of Cathay in 1338. The four legates accompanied by about 46 fol lowers traveled east via Constantinople, whence in June 1339 they sailed across the Black Sea to Kaffa. They spent the winter of 1339 at Sarai on the Volga, enjoying the hospitality of Mahommed Uzbeg, Khan of the Golden Horde. From his court the party traversed the steppes to Almalig- (Kulja), in the modern Ili. They reached Peking via Kamul about June 1342, and were well received by the Khan. The arrival of this embassy is chronicled in Chinese annals. Marignolli remained three or four years in Peking, after which he wandered through east ern China to Amoy Harbor. In 1348 he reached Kaulam (Columbum) in Malabar, where he founded a Latin church. He stayed 18 months there after which he appears to have visited the coast near Madras, thence journeyed to Java, and on a voyage to Europe was wrecked at Bernwala (Pervily), Ceylon, where he was de tained four months by the native ruler, Khoja Jahan. Marignolli returned via Armuz, Bagdad,
Mosul, Aleppo, Damascus and Jerusalem, ar riving at Avignon in 1353 and delivering a letter from the Khan to Pope Innocent VI. In 1354 the emperor, Charles IV, made Marignolli one of his chaplains, and soon afterward he was consecrated bishop of Bisignano. It • does not appear, however, that he ever took possession of his see. About 1355 he removed in the ret inue of the emperor to Prague and was papal envoy to Florence in 1356. In 1357 he was at Bologna. The last trace of Marignolli is a letter to him from Richard Fitz Ralph, arch bishop of Armagh, Ireland, in which the writer objects to the sending of Marignolli as papal envoy to Ireland. In 1768 Marignolli's work appeared in volume II of histori Bohemia,) edited by Dobner. Modern readers were first attracted by the account published by J. G. Meinert (1820). Consult Beazley, C. R., of Modern Geography' (Vol. III, 142, 180-181, 184-185, 215, 231, 288-309, 1906).