Riccoldo da Monte di Croce

Riccoldo da Monte di Croce (Florence; 1320) or Ricold of Monte Croce was an Italian Dominican friar, travel writer, missionary, and Christian apologist. He is most famous for his polemical works on Medieval Islam and the account of his missionary travels to Baghdad.

Life Riccoldo was born in Florence, and his family name originated from a small castle just above Pontassieve. As he is sometimes referenced as "Pennini", his father was presumably named Pennino. After studying in various major European schools, he became a Dominican in 1267, entering the house of Santa Maria Novella. He was a professor in several convents of Tuscany, including St Catherine in Pisa (1272–99). With a papal commission to preach he departed for Acre (Antiochia Ptolemais) in 1286 or 1287 and made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land (1288) and then travelled for many years as a missionary in western Asia. He arrived in Mossul in 1289, equipped with a papal bull. He failed to convince the Nestorian Christian mayor of the city to convert to Catholicism. He was a missionary to the court of the Mongol Il-Khan ruler Arghun, of whom he wrote that he was "a man given to the worst of villainy, but for all that a friend of the Christians".

Moving to Baghdad, Riccoldo entered in conflict with the local Nestorian Christians, preaching against them in their own cathedral. He was allowed nonetheless by Mongol authorities to build his own church, with the interdiction to preach in public. Riccoldo brought the matter to the Nestorian patriarch Yahballaha III, who agreed with him that the doctrine of Nestorius, namely the duality of Christ (thus achieving a theoretical fusion of the Latin Church and the Church of the East) was heretical. Yahballaha was however disavowed by his own followers. Despite Riccoldo's hostility towards Islam, his work shows specific knowledge of the Qur'an and overcomes one important prejudicial error common to other Medieval criticisms of Islam: the view of Muhammad as an introducer of a Christological heresy.

The Christianæ Fidei Confessio facta Sarracenis (printed in Basel, 1543) is attributed to Riccoldo, and was probably written about the same time as the above-mentioned works. Other works are: Against the Errors of the Jews ; Against the Eastern Races (; MSS. at Florence and Paris); Against the Saracens and Quran (; MS. at Paris); and On Different Religions (; MS. at Turin). Very probably the last three works were written after his return to Europe; the last has a title similar to the last chapter of the Travels . Riccoldo is also known to have written two theological works—a defence of the doctrines of Thomas Aquinas (in collaboration with John of Pistoia, about 1285) and a commentary on the Libri Sententiarum (before 1288). Riccoldo began a Latin translation of the Quran about 1290, but it is not known whether this work was completed.