<previous Around the time Giotto was a child, Guillaume de Rubrouck travelled to the far east (1253-1255). He is an envoy from the French King and the Papacy concerned by the Mongol Empire. Guillaume is a Franciscan from Flanders who will bring back in his writing a portrait of the Mongol society. Around 1300, missionaries head toward India an China. Giovanni of Monte Corvino became the first archbishop of Peking. He built a church and converted 150 boys to christianity. Before him two Venitian brothers Niccolo and Maffeo Polo had reached Peking. Again around 1271 when Giotto was still a child, they took their nephrew Marco Polo for another trip far East to visit the Great Khan Kublai and remain at his court for twenty years. It took them three years to come back to Venice.
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