dominions ;1 whilst in 1356 we find him at Avignon, acting as envoy to the Pope from the republic of Florence ; and in 1357 he is traced at Bologna by his grant of indulgence privileges to one of the churches in that city.2
It was, no doubt, during Marignolli's visit to Prague that the Emperor desired him to undertake the task of recasting the Annals of Bohemia. Charles would have shewn a great deal more sense if he had directed his chaplain to write a detailed narrative of his own eastern experiences. However, let us be thankful for what we have. The essential part of the task set him was utterly repugnant to the Tuscan churchman. He drew back, as he says himself, " from the thorny thickets and tangled brakes of the Bohemian chronicles"; from " the labyrinthine jungle of strange naines, the very utterance of which was an impossibility to his Florentine tongue." And so he consoled himself under the disagreeable duty imposed on him, by interpolating his chronicles, ùpropos de bottes, with the recollections of his Asiatic travels, or with the notions they had given him of. Asiatic geography. It might have been hard, perhaps, to drag these into a mere chronicle of Bohemia ; but in those days every legitimate chronicle began from Adam at latest, and it would have been strange if this did not afford latitude for the introduction of any of Adam's posterity.
Chronicle and reminiscences alike slept in Prague cloister dust for some four centuries. During all that time Marignolli's name as a Bohemian chronicler is only twice alluded to, and that by authors strange to nearly all beyond Bohemian boundaries ; one
1 Marignolli's most distinct mention of having been at Prague is found at p. 136 (of Dobner), in introducing a chapter entitled " 111iraculwm, de Incisione digiti Scti Nicolai." He says this finger was sent to the Emperor with other reliques by the Pope, " and it will not be irrelevant to state," he proceeds, a new miracle which mine own eyes have seen and mine own hands have handled," etc. ; and then tells his story about blood flowing when the Emperor pricked the finger, etc. Now, according to Dobner, Hagecius a Bohemian chronicler ascribes this story to 1353. This is probably wrong, otherwise the Emperor must have called Marignolli to Prague previous to his own visit to Italy.
2 Sbaralea, as above. In the grant of indulgence he speaks of himself as administering for Richard Archbishop of Nazareth, a brother of his order. The diocese of Nazareth, created in honour of the name, had a scattered jurisdiction chiefly in the kingdom of Naples (Ughelli, vol. vii).
IIIF Color HighRes
