GIOVANNI da Montecorvino. – First bishop of Khambalik (Peking). B. in 1247 at Montecorvino (Salerno), d. at Khambalik in 1328. According to the contemporary Giovanni de’ Marignolli, before becoming a Franciscan friar he is said to have been a soldier, judge, and physician, which suggests that he came from a distinguished family. Rigorous and austere, he may have belonged to the Spiritual (v.) or Zealous movement. Before 1289 he had already been sent, probably by the Minister General Fra Bonagrazia (1273–83), as a missionary to Persia and Armenia, whence in that year he returned to Europe as a legate of King Hethum II of Armenia to Pope Nicholas IV. The Pope in turn employed him on an embassy to many Eastern peoples, especially to the Great Khan of China.
With papal credentials he left on 15 July 1289 from Rieti, where the papal curia was then located, and landed at Antioch; thence he proceeded to Sis, capital of Armenia, and then to Tauris (Tabriz) in Persia. From there, in 1291, together with the Dominican Nicola da Pistoia, who died during the journey, and a wealthy Italian merchant, he sailed to Khambalik, arriving between 1294 and 1295. He was received with Oriental splendor as the Pope’s ambassador. A letter written from India provides information about his journey.
At Khambalik he lived for 34 years, carrying on an active apostolate in the city and throughout the Tatar Empire. He built three churches and convents in Khambalik, one church and convent at Yang-chou (in Kiang-su), three churches and convents at Zaytong (in Fukien), and other churches and Christian communities in Chekiang, in the country of the T’oquz-oghuz, and at Armalik (Kulja). He founded two boys’ orphanages in Khambalik and a kind of small seminary where he gathered forty boys whom he instructed in Latin, chant, and ecclesiastical ceremonies. Having soon mastered the language, he translated the Psalter and the New Testament.
He baptized many thousands of unbelievers, but encountered serious difficulties in his ministry, especially from the Nestorians. On 8 January 1295 and 13 February 1306 he wrote two letters in which he reported on his work and urgently requested reinforcements, especially of personnel. In response, the Supreme Pontiff and the Franciscan Minister General dispatched a large expedition with seven bishops, charged with consecrating Giovanni da Montecorvino himself as archbishop of Khambalik and patriarch of all the Orient, which took place between 1307 and 1309. In 1322 Odoric of Pordenone arrived at Khambalik, and in 1328 Giovanni died.
The great work he had so well begun gradually faded away for various reasons, including the diminished contacts between Europe and China, and from 1370 onward no further news survives of this first evangelization of China.