REAL AND VIRTUAL PILGRIMS AND THE ITALIAN VERSION OF THE BOOK OF JOHN MANDEVILLE

The Book of John Mandeville (c.1356) was the most influential pilgrimage account in late medieval Europe, yet its reception in Italy-a setting intimately connected with the Jerusalem pilgrimage-remains largely unexplored. This article examines how some fifteenth-century Italian pilgrims read and reused Mandeville in compiling accounts of their own journeys to Jerusalem. It demonstrates the text's influence on two specific groups of pilgrim authors: the Paduan noblemen Gabriele and Antonio Capodilista, who travelled to Jerusalem in 1458, and the Tuscan priests Michele da Figline and Antonio del Lavacchio, whose pilgrimage was an extension of the 1488 Florentine diplomatic mission to Cairo. These case studies indicate Mandeville's relevance to Italian pilgrims from scholarly and clerical backgrounds, revealing in particular how the Book was repurposed in the production of texts intended to aid the devotional practice of virtual pilgrimage.