Riccoldo da Monte di Croce

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.

His Book of Travels (Latin: Liber Peregrinacionis) or Itinerary (Itinerarius), written about 1288–91, was intended as a guide-book for missionaries, and is a description of the Oriental countries he visited.

After visiting the Jordan River and the Dead Sea he left Palestine by the coast road, retracing his steps to Acre and passing on by Tripoli and Tortosa into Cilicia.

I wept over the loss of Acre, seeing the Saracens joyous and prospering, the Christians squalid and consternated: little children, young girls, old people, whimpering, threatened to be led as captives and slaves into the remotest countries of the East, among barbarous nations.

Suddenly, in this sadness, swept up into an unaccustomed astonishment, I began, stupefied, to ponder God's judgment concerning the government of the world, especially concerning the Saracens and the Christians.

During his stay in Baghdad, Riccoldo studied the Qur'an and other works of Islamic theology for controversial purposes, arguing with Nestorian Christians, and writing.

Riccoldo's best known work of this kind was his book Against the Laws of the Saracens, written in Baghdad, which has in previous centuries been very popular among Christians as a polemical source against Islam, and has been often edited (first published in Seville, 1500, under the title Confutatio Alcorani or "Confutation of the Koran").

There are translations into English by Thomas C. Pfotenhauer (Islam in the Crucible: Can It Pass the Test?, Lutheran News, Inc., 2002), and Londini Ensis, under the title, "Refutation of the Koran" (Createspace 2010).

One of Riccoldo's major sources, extensively quoted in his own work, is the anonymous Liber Denudationis siue Ostensionis aut Patefaciens.

[5] 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.