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. He returned to Florence before 1302, and was chosen to high offices in his order. He died in Florence on 31 October 1320. Works Travels His Book of Travels () or Itinerary (), written about 1288–91, was intended as a guide-book for missionaries, and is a description of the Oriental countries he visited. In 1288 or 1289 he began to keep a record of his experiences in the Levant; this record he probably reduced to final book form in Baghdad. Entering Syria at Acre, he crossed Galilee to the Sea of Tiberias; thence returning to Acre he seems to have travelled down the