Ignace Cotolendi was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 bishop

Bishop

A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society

Paris Foreign Missions Society

The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris is a Roman Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious order, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons dedicated to missionary work in foreign lands....

 and became a missionnary in Asia.

Life

Born in Brignoles

Brignoles

Brignoles is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.It was the summer residence of the counts of Provence...

, Var, Cotolendi was recruited by Alexander de Rhodes

Alexander de Rhodes

Father Alexander de Rhodes was a French Jesuit missionary and lexicographer who had a lasting impact on Christianity in Vietnam. He wrote the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum, the first trilingual Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary published in Rome in 1651.- Biography...

 as secular clergy

Secular clergy

The term secular clergy refers to deacons and priests who are not monastics or members of a religious order.-Catholic Church:In the Catholic Church, the secular clergy are ministers, such as deacons and priests, who do not belong to a religious order...

 volunteers to become a missionnary in Asia, together with François Pallu

François Pallu

François Pallu was a French bishop. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and became a missionnary in Asia.-Life:...

 and Pierre Lambert de la Motte

Pierre Lambert de la Motte

Pierre Lambert de la Motte was a French bishop. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and became a missionary in Asia.-Life:...

. They were sent to the Far-East as Apostolic vicars

Apostolic vicariate

An apostolic vicariate is a form of territorial jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church established in missionary regions and countries that do not have a diocese. It is essentially provisional, though it may last for a century or more...

.

In 1660 Ignace Cotolendi was nominated Bishop of Metellopolis, Vicar Apostolic of Nankin, with three regions of northeastern China, Tartary

Tartary

Tartary or Great Tartary was a name used by Europeans from the Middle Ages until the twentieth century to designate the Great Steppe, that is the great tract of northern and central Asia stretching from the Caspian Sea and the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean inhabited mostly by Turkic, Mongol...

 and Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

 under his responsibility. He was the first Bishop

Bishop

A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

 of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Nanking

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Nanking

The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Nanking is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in China. It was erected as the Apostolic Vicariate of Nanking in 1659 by Pope Alexander VII, and promoted to a diocese by Pope Alexander VIII on April 10, 1690...

.

The three bishops left France (1660–62) to go to their respective missions, and crossed Persia and India on foot, since Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 would have refused to take non-Padroado

Padroado

The Padroado , was an arrangement between the Holy See and the kingdom of Portugal, affirmed by a series of treaties, by which the Vatican delegated to the kings of Spain and Portugal the administration of the local Churches...

 missionnaries by ship, and the Dutch and the English refused to take Catholic missionnaries. Cotolendi left with three missionaries on 3 September 1661. After travelling overland to India, Ignace Cotolendi died near Masulipatam as he was waiting for his passage to Siam.