Niccolò da Poggibonsi

Who is Niccolò da Poggibonsi?

Frà Niccolò da Poggibonsi was a Franciscan monk who made a famous pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1345–50, which he described in Italian in his Libro d'oltramare.

From Poggibonsi in Tuscany, Niccolò, with seven companions, departed for Venice, from where he embarked for a sea voyage to Cyprus. He sojourned for some months on the island in the service of King Hugh IV. He then left for Jaffa, and from there visited the shrines in Jerusalem and the myriad holy sites of Palestine. He went as far as Damascus intending to visit "Babylonia" and "Chaldaea", which he never did.

He left by ship from Beirut and stopped in Egypt, where he visited Alexandria, "Babylonia", New Cairo, and the places in Sinai mentioned in the Old Testament. There he also visited the ancient Monastery of Saint Catherine. He continued north to Gaza and there turned back towards the Nile delta, where he took a ship from Damietta to Cyprus.

In Cyprus he boarded a ship for Italy. The ship followed an adventurous course, taking him by the Anatolian coast of Ottoman Empire, to call in the port of Tripoli, and near Poreč on the Adriatic, where he was captured by brigands but managed to escape. He arrived safe in Venice late in 1349 and went to Ferrara, where he was detained until the spring of 1350, when he finally, after five years of wandering, returned to Poggibonsi.