RAIMONDI, GIOVANNI TIMOLEONE. — First Apostolic Vicar of Hong Kong, b. in Milan in 1827, d. in Hong Kong in 1894. Brother of ANTONIO, naturalist and explorer of Peru, after having taken part, as a cleric, in the barricades of 1848, he entered, in 1850, the newly founded Missionary Seminary, and, destined for Melanesia and Micronesia, he was part of the first group of missionaries to depart in 1852.
He worked on Woodlark Island until 1855, then, returning from the islands due to illness, in Manila and Borneo. Having moved to Hong Kong in 1858, he remained there until his death, first as a simple missionary, then as vice-prefect and vice-procurator of Propaganda (1860-67), prefect and procurator (1867-74), and finally as Apostolic Vicar Bishop. In Hong Kong he greatly developed the schools and built the new Cathedral. He also vigorously promoted the apostolate among the purely Chinese mainland annexed to the colony of Hong Kong, first by exploring the terrain and then by visiting each year the mission stations, and he did not neglect to regulate all the activity of the mission, holding two synods and publishing a volume of *Monita* for the use of his missionaries. His letters and reports were published in the *Museo delle Missioni cattoliche* of Turin, in *L'Osservatore lombardo* of Brescia, and in *Il Cattolico* of Milan, later in *Le Missioni cattoliche*; his unpublished correspondence is very extensive.
Propaganda in Rome, priest on 12 Apr. 1873, he was consecrated Bishop of Edessa on 2 Nov. 1887, elected Patriarch in the Synod of Mardin on 13 Sept. 1898.