He is most famous today for the account he wrote in Italian of his 1458 pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the Itinerario in Terra Santa.
His father, Giovan Francesco, was a professor of canon and civil law at the University of Padua for forty years.
With his cousin Antonio Capodilista, he worked for Cardinal Ludovico Scarampi Mezzarota, Patriarch of Aquileia, for many years.
There were a hundred other pilgrims on the same ship, including Roberto da Sanseverino and John Tiptoft, both of whom the Capodilistas befriended.
They spent three days on Rhodes, where the Capodilistas were hosted by Scarampi Mezzarota, who was on the island in his capacity as papal legate.
The Capodilistas spent ten days in Candia at the house of their relative, Antonio Querini, and arrived back in Venice on 6 September.
[2][6] By this time a "knight and count" (eques et comes), he took up residence in a palace on the road from Padua to Abano Terme, dedicating himself to humanistic learning.
On 4 April 1470, in Padua, he drew up a will making his wife, Romea, daughter of Antonio Borromeo, the primary beneficiary of his landed wealth, concentrated in the Paduan district of Mandria.
In 1476, he served another term as Roman senator, in which capacity he confirmed the statutes of the cloth and wool merchants' guilds.
He makes use of the Liber secretorum of Marino Sanuto the Elder and of the fantastic voyage of John Mandeville.
He also appears to have exchanged notes with Roberto da Sanseverino, probably deriving his account of Sinai and Saint Catherine's from him.
Boncambio edited the text for publication, adding a Latin poem to the Virgin Mary by Gregory Tifernas and a prayer to Jesus in Italian verse.