RECOLLECTIONS OF TRAVEL IN THE EAST, BY JOHN DE' MARIGNOLLI,
PAPAL LEGATE TO THE COURT OP THE GREAT KHAN,
AND AFTERWARDS BISHOP OF BISIGNANO.
THE author begins by announcing his intention of dividing his work into Three Books, viz., I. Thearchos, or the History of the World from the Creation to the Building of Babel ; II. Monarchos, or the History of Kings, from Nimrod down to the Franks and Germans, and so to the Kingdom. of Bohemia ; 111. Ierarchos, or the Ecclesiastical History, from Melchizedek to Moses and Aaron, to the Foundation of Christianity, and so to the Roman Pontiffs and the Bishops of Bohemia in order.
After speaking of the Creation the author comes .to treat of Paradise, " Eastward in the place called Eden, beyond India," and this launches him at once on his reminiscences as follows :
And now to insert some brief passages of what I have seen myself. I, Friar John of Florence, of the order of Minors, and now unworthy Bishop of Bisignano, was sent with certain others, in the year of our Lord one thousand three hundred and thirty [eight],1 by the holy Pope Benedict the Eleventh, to carry letters and presents from the apostolic see to the Kaan or chief Emperor of all the Tartars, a sove-
1 In both MSS. this is tricesimo quarto, but beyond question from a clerical error, as there is no doubt about the true year. Probably in the original MS. vin was taken for iiii.
Undecimo in the Venice MS. ; Dobner has duodecimo. This Pope is sometimes XI, sometimes XII ; Benedict XI being in the latter case an antipope.
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