PRETE GIANNI (PRETE JANNI). - Throughout the Middle Ages, particularly after the thirteenth century, the legend of the existence of the mysterious kingdom of p. G., flourishing somewhere in the East beyond the “iron curtain” of Muslim domination, was widely disseminated in Europe. Marco Polo places this kingdom in China, in Shan-si.
In the fifteenth century, the search for the kingdom of p. G. gave rise to numerous journeys and expeditions that helped to broaden Europe’s geographical horizon. The French friar Giordano de Séverac, and the Italian fra Giovanni Marignolli, were among the first definitively to locate the kingdom of p. G. in Ethiopia. It was also sought by the Portuguese navigators who explored the coast of the Red Sea after the voyages of Bartolomeo Diaz and Vasco de Gama. Popular imagination portrayed the kingdom of p. G. as exceedingly powerful and wealthy. Modern hypotheses concerning the actual existence and exact location of the kingdom of p. G. have no real foundation; equally uncertain is the origin of the ruler’s name and of his priestly title.