Clerics › Religious Figure
Odoric of Pordenone
Franciscan friar from Friuli who reached China by sea in the early 1320s, spent about three years at Khanbaliq and dictated an account of his travels on his return
In a temple courtyard at dusk, a great bronze bell hangs at the right and incense smoke rises from a bronze urn; monks in orange robes and plainly dressed visitors walk toward a lamplit hall, lotus flowers bloom in a stone basin, and a gold prayer wheel stands at the left.
Also known as Odoric de Pordenone
- Roles
- Religious Figure
Odoric of Pordenone, known in Chinese as Eduolike or Hedeli, came from Friuli in northeastern Italy and joined the Franciscan order as a young man. Around 1318 he set out from Venice and travelled by way of Constantinople, Hormuz, the west coast of India, Ceylon, Sumatra and Champa, landing in China at Guangzhou. He went on through Quanzhou, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Yangzhou, lived for about three years at Khanbaliq, the Yuan capital, and returned west overland, possibly through Tibet. In 1330, ill at Padua, he dictated his recollections to a fellow friar; the resulting Relatio describes, among much else, the vast size of Hangzhou and the Franciscan houses at Quanzhou. He died at Udine in January 1331 and was beatified in 1755.
Life and times
Dates c. 1286 CE–1331 CE