Riccoldo da Monte di Croce

The recorded working language is medieval Latin, medieval Italian and Latin. The field of work recorded is Christianity and Islam. Thomas Aquinas is recorded as an influence. Works named in the authority record are Liber peregrinationis, Epistole quinque commentatorie de perditione Acconis, Contra legem Sarracenorum and Ad nationes orientales.

Riccoldo was born in Florence, and his family name originated from a small castle just above Pontassieve. As he is sometimes referenced as "Pennini", his father was presumably named Pennino. After studying in various major European schools, he became a Dominican in 1267, entering the house of Santa Maria Novella. He was a professor in several convents of Tuscany, including St Catherine in Pisa (1272–99). With a papal commission to preach he departed for Acre (Antiochia Ptolemais) in 1286 or 1287 and made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land (1288) and then travelled for many years as a missionary in western Asia. He arrived in Mossul in 1289, equipped with a papal bull. He failed to convince the Nestorian Christian mayor of the city to convert to Catholicism. He was a missionary to the court of the Mongol Il-Khan ruler Arghun, of whom he wrote that he was "a man given to the worst of villainy, but for all that a friend of the Christians". Moving to Baghdad, Riccoldo entered in conflict with the local Nestorian Christians, preaching against them in their own cathedral. He was allowed nonetheless by Mongol authorities to build his own church, with the interdiction to preach in public. Riccoldo brought the matter to the Nestorian patriarch Yahballaha III, who agreed with him that the doctrine of Nestorius, namely the duality of Christ (thus achieving a theoretical fusion of the Latin Church and the Church of the East) was heretical. Yahballaha was however disavowed by his own followers. He returned to Florence before 1302, and was chosen to high offices in his order. He died in Florence on 31 October 1320.

• Illustration — Title page of Riccoldo's work published in Seville c.1500, showing a Christian friar preaching to Muslims

His Book of Travels (Liber Peregrinacionis) or Itinerary (Itinerarius), written about 1288–91, was intended as a guide-book for missionaries, and is a description of the Oriental countries he visited. In 1288 or 1289 he began to keep a record of his experiences in the Levant; this record he probably reduced to final book form in Baghdad. Entering Syria at Acre, he crossed Galilee to the Sea of Tiberias; thence returning to Acre he seems to have travelled down the coast to Jaffa, and so up to Jerusalem. After visiting the Jordan River and the Dead Sea he left Palestine by the coast road, retracing his steps to Acre and passing on by Tripoli and Tortosa into Cilicia. From the Cilician port of Lajazzo (now Yumurtalik in Turkey) he started on the great high road to Tabriz in north Persia. Crossing the Taurus he travelled on by Sivas of Cappadocia to Erzerum, the neighborhood of Ararat and Tabriz. In and near Tabriz he preached for several months, after which he proceeded to Baghdad via Mosul and Tikrit. In Baghdad he stayed several years. As a traveller and observer his merits are conspicuous. His account of the Tatars and his sketch of Islamic religion and manners are especially noteworthy. In spite of strong prejudice, he shows remarkable breadth of view and appreciation of merit in systems different from his own.

His Letters on the Fall of Acre (Epistolæ de Perditione Acconis) are five letters in the form of lamentations over the fall of Acre (written about 1292, published in Paris, 1884).