IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
| 328 MARIGNOLLI'S RECOLLECTIONS OF EASTERN TRAVEL. How, or in what company, Marignolli quitted Ceylon, he leaves untold. We only gather from very slight and incidental notices that he must have sailed to Hormuz, and afterwards travelled by the ruins of Babylon to Baghdad, Mosul, Edessa, Aleppo, and thence to Damascus, Galilee, and Jerusalem. The sole further trace of him on his way to Italy, is that he seems to have touched at Cyprus. In 1353, according to Wadding, he arrived at Avignon, bring- ing a letter from the Khan to the Pope (now Innocent VI), in which the monarch was made to express the greatest esteem for the Christian faith, to acknowledge the subjection of his Christian lieges to the Pope, and to ask for more missionaries. It was probably during the visit of the Emperor Charles IV' to Italy in 1354, to be crowned by the Pope at Rome, that he became acquainted with Marignolli, and made him one of his domestic chaplains. To this he was perhaps induced by curiosity to hear at leisure the relations of one who had travelled to the world's end ; for, though mean in moral character, Charles was a man of intelligence, and an encourager of learning and the useful arts.2 In 1354 also the Pope rewarded our traveller with the bishopric of Bisignano in Calabria.3 The bishop, however, seems to have been in no hurry to reside there ; thinking perhaps that a man who had spent so many years of his life in travelling to Cathay and back, might well be excused from passing the whole of those that remained to him in the wilds of Calabria. He seems to have accompanied the Emperor on his return from Italy to his paternal 1 Charles, son of John of Luxemburg, King of Bohemia, the blind war- rior who fell at Crecy, was born in 1316, and in 1346 was elected emperor in place of the excommunicated Lewis of Bavaria. 2 Dobner was not able to find the appointment of Marignolli among the archives of Charles's court at Prague, though he found several other nominations to that dignity, viz., as " consiliarius, capellanus, familiaris et commensalis domesticus." 3 12th May, 1354 (Ughelli, Italia Sacra, as above). The small episcopal city of Bisignano, supposed to have been the ancient Besidiee, stands on a hill to the east of the post-road between Castrovillari and Cosenza. It gives the title of prince to the Sanseverino family (Murray). Wadding notices the appointment of a Friar John to this bishopric, but seems not to have known that it was the legate whose return from Cathay he had recorded. | ||
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