“emperor of Ethiopia” or Abyssinian Negus. Arriving at Tabriz, then the chief city of Mongol Persia, and indeed of all Western Asia, Monte Corvino moved down to India to the Madras region or “Country of St Thomas,” from which he wrote home, in December 1291 (or 1292), the earliest noteworthy account of the Coromandel coast furnished by any Western European. He next appears in “Cambaliech” or Peking, and wrote letters (of Jan. 8, 1305, and Feb. 13, 1306), describing the progress of the Roman mission in the Far East, in spite of Nestorian opposition; alluding to the Roman Catholic community he had founded in India, and to an appeal he had received to preach in “Ethiopia” and dealing with overland and oversea routes to “Cathay,” from the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf respectively. In 1303 he received his first colleague, the Franciscan Arnold of Cologne; in 1307 Pope Clement V. created him archbishop of Peking, and despatched seven bishops to consecrate and assist him; three only of these arrived (1308). Three more suffragans were sent out in 1312, of whom one at least reached East Asia. A Franciscan tradition maintains that about 1310 Monte Corvino converted the Great Khan (i.e. Khaishan Kuluk, third of the Yuen dynasty; 1307–1311): this has been disputed, but he unquestionably won remarkable successes in North and East China. Besides three mission stations in Peking, he established one near the present Amoy harbour, opposite Formosa. At his death, about 1328, heathen vied with Christian in honouring him. He was apparently the only effective European bishop in the Peking of the middle ages.
The MSS. of Monte Corvino’s Letters exist in the Laurentian Library, Florence (for the Indian Epistle) and in the National Library, Paris, 5006 Lat.—viz. the Liber de aetatibus, fols. 170, v.-172, r. (for the Chinese). They are printed in Wadding, Annales minorum (A.D. 1305 and 1306) vi. 69–72, 91–92 (ed. of 1733, &c.), and in the Münchner gelehrte Anzeigen (1855), No. 22, part iii. pp. 171–175.English translations, with valuable comments, are in Sir H. Yule’s Cathay, i. 197–221. See also Wadding, Annales, v. 195–198, 199–203, vi. 93, &c., 147, &c., 176, &c., 467, &c.; C. R. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, iii. 162–178, 206–210; Sir H. Yule, Cathay, i. 165–173. (C. R. B.)
MONTECRISTO, (anc. Oglasa), an island of Italy, belonging
to the province of Leghorn, 25 m. S. of Elba. Its highest point
is 2126 ft. above sea-level, and its area about 6 sq. m. It
contains the ruins of a Camaldulensian monastery, founded in
the 13th century and destroyed in the 16th, and is the private
property of the king of Italy, who has a shooting-lodge there.
The fame of the island is due to the novel, Le Comte de Montecristo,
by the elder Dumas.
MONTECUCCULI (Montecuccoli), RAIMONDO, Count of
(1609–1680), prince of the holy Roman Empire and Neapolitan
duke of Melfi, Austrian general, was born on the 21st of
February 1608/9, at the castle of Montecucculo in Modena. His
family was of Burgundian origin and had settled in north Italy
in the 10th century. At the age of sixteen Montecucculi began
as a private soldier under his uncle, Count Ernest Montecucculi,
a distinguished Austrian general (d. 1633). Four years later,
after much active service in Germany and the Low Countries,
he became a captain of infantry. He was severely wounded
at the storming of New Brandenburg, and again in the same year
(1631) at the first battle of Breitenfeld, where he fell into the
hands of the Swedes. He was again wounded at Lützen in
1632, and on his recovery was made a major in his uncle’s
regiment. Shortly afterwards he became a lieutenant-colonel of
cavalry. He did good service at the first battle of Nördlingen
(1634), and at the storming of Kaiserslautern in the following
year won his colonelcy by a feat of arms of unusual brilliance,
a charge through the breach at the head of his heavy cavalry.
He fought in Pomerania, Bohemia and Saxony (surprise of
Wolmirstädt, battles of Wittstock and Chemnitz), and in 1639
he was taken prisoner at Melnik and detained for two and a half
years in Stettin and Weimar. In captivity he studied, not only
military science, but also geometry in Euclid, history in Tacitus,
and architecture in Vitruvius, and planned his great work on
war. On his release he distinguished himself again in Silesia.
In 1643 he went to Italy, by the emperor’s request, and made a
successful campaign in Lombardy. On his return to Germany
he was promoted lieutenant-field-marshal and obtained a seat
in the council of war. In 1645–46 he served in Hungary against
Prince Rakoczy of Transylvania, on the Danube and Neckar
against the French, and in Silesia and Bohemia against the
Swedes. The victory of Triebel in Silesia won him the rank of
general of cavalry, and at the battle of Zusmarshausen in 1648
his stubborn rearguard fighting rescued the imperialists from
annihilation. For some years after the peace of Westphalia
Montecucculi was chiefly concerned with the business of the
council of War, though he went to Flanders and England as the
representative of the emperor, and to Sweden as the envoy of the
pope to Queen Christina, and at Modena his lance was victorious
in a great tourney. In 1657, soon after his marriage with
Countess Margarethe Dietrichstein, he took part in, and after
a time commanded, an expedition against Rakoczy and the
Swedes who had attacked the king of Poland. He became field-marshal
in the imperial army, and with the Great Elector of
Brandenburg completely defeated Rakoczy and his allies (peace
of Oliva, 1660). From 1661 to 1664 Montecucculi with inferior
numbers defended Austria against the Turks; but at St Gotthard
Abbey, on the Raab, he defeated the Turks so completely that
they made a truce for twenty years (Aug. 1, 1664). He was
given the Golden Fleece, and became president of the council
of war and director of artillery. He also devoted much time
to the compilation of his various works on military history and
science. He opposed the progress of the French arms under
Louis XIV., and when the inevitable war broke out received
command of the imperial forces. In the campaign of 1673 he
completely out-manœuvred his great rival Turenne on the Neckar
and the Rhine, and secured the capture of Bonn and the junction
of his own army with that of the prince of Orange on the lower
Rhine. He retired from the army when, in 1674, the Great
Elector was appointed to command in chief, but the brilliant
successes of Turenne in the winter of 1674 and 1675 brought him
back. For months the two famous commanders manœuvred
against each other in the Rhine valley, but on the eve of a
decisive battle Turenne was killed and Montecucculi promptly
invaded Alsace, where he engaged in a war of manœuvre with
the great Condé. The siege of Philipsburg was Montecucculi’s
last achievement in war. The rest of his life was spent in military
administration and literary and scientific work at Vienna. In
1679 the emperor made him a prince of the empire, and shortly
afterwards he received the dukedom of Melfi from the king of
Naples. Montecucculi died at Linz on the 16th of October
1680, as the result of an accident. With the death of his only
son in 1698 the principality became extinct, but the title of
count descended through his daughters to two branches, Austrian
and Modenese. As a general, Montecucculi shared with Turenne
and Condé the first place amongst European soldiers of his time.
His Memorie della guerra profoundly influenced the age which
followed his own; nor have modern conditions rendered the
advice of Montecucculi wholly valueless.
Authorities.—The Memorie della guerra., &c., was published at Venice in 1703 and at Cologne in the following year. A Latin edition appeared in 1718 at Vienna, a French version at Paris in 1712, and the German Kriegsnachrichten des Fürsten Raymundi Montecuccoli at Leipzig in 1736. Of this work there are MSS. in various libraries, and many memoirs on military history, tactics, fortification, &c., written in Italian, Latin and German, remain still unedited in the archives of Vienna. The collected Opere di Raimondo Montecuccoli were published at Milan (1807), Turin (1821) and Venice (1840), and include political essays and poetry.
See Campori, Raimondo Montecuccoli (Florence, 1876); Spenholtz, Aureum vellus seu catena, &c. (Vienna, 1668); memoir prefaced to the Memorie (Cologne edition); this appears also in v. der Groeben’s Neuer Kriegsbibliothek, vi. 230 (Breslau, 1777); Morgenstern, Oesterreichs Helden (St Pölten, 1782); Schweigerd, Oesterreichs Helden (Vienna, 1853); Paradisi, Elogio storico del conte Raimondo Montecucculi (Modena, 1776); Schels, Oesterreichische militärische Zeitschrift (Vienna, 1818, 1828 and 1842); Pezzl, Lebensbeschreibung Montecucculis (Vienna, 1792); Hormayr, Oesterreichischer Plutarch, XIII. (Vienna, 1808); Reilly, Biographie der berühmtesten Feldherrn Oesterreichs (Vienna, 1813); Würzbach, Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums, &c., pt. 19 (Vienna, 1868); Teuffenbach, Vaterländisches Ehrenbuch (Vienna and Teschen, 1877); Die Hofkriegsraths, präsidenten (Vienna, 1374); Weingartner, Heldenbuch (Teschen, 1882); Grossmann, Archiv für öst. Geschichte (Vienna, 1878); also
