The Voyages of Marco Polo. Марко Поло
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occasional use of Oriental state records, as in Herodotus's accounts of the revenues of the satrapies, and of the army of Xerxes, and in Marco Polo's account of Kinsay, and of the Kaan's revenues. (Vol. ii pp. 185, 216.)
[14] An example is seen in the voluminous Annali Musulmani of G. B. Rampoldi, Milan, 1825. This writer speaks of the Travels of Marco Polo with his brother and uncle; declares that he visited Tipango (sic), Java, Ceylon, and the Maldives, collected all the geographical notions of his age, traversed the two peninsulas of the Indies, examined the islands of Socotra, Madagascar, Sofala, and traversed with philosophic eye the regions of Zanguebar, Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt! and so forth (ix. 174). And whilst Malte-Brun bestows on Marco the sounding and ridiculous title of "the Humboldt of the 13th century," he shows little real acquaintance with his Book. (See his Précis, ed. of 1836, I. 551 seqq.)
[15] See for example vol. i. p. 338, and note 4 at p. 341; also vol. ii. p. 103. The descriptions in the style referred to recur in all seven times; but most of them (which are in Book IV.) have been omitted in this translation.
[16] [On the subject of Moses of Chorene and his works, I must refer to the clever researches of the late Auguste Carrière, Professor of Armenian at the École des Langues Orientales.—H. C.]
[17] Zacher, Forschungen zur Critik, &c., der Alexandersage, Halle, 1867, p. 108.
[18] Even so sagacious a man as Roger Bacon quotes the fabulous letter of Alexander to Aristotle as authentic. (Opus Majus, p. 137.)
[19] J. As. sér. VI. tom. xviii. p. 352.
[20] See passage from Jacopo d'Acqui, supra, p. 54.
[21] It is the transcriber of one of the Florence MSS. who appends this terminal note, worthy of Mrs. Nickleby:—"Here ends the Book of Messer M. P. of Venice, written with mine own hand by me Amalio Bonaguisi when Podestà of Cierreto Guidi, to get rid of time and ennui. The contents seem to me incredible things, not lies so much as miracles; and it may be all very true what he says, but I don't believe it; though to be sure throughout the world very different things are found in different countries. But these things, it has seemed to me in copying, are entertaining enough, but not things to believe or put any faith in; that at least is my opinion. And I finished copying this at Cierreto aforesaid, 12th November, A.D. 1392."
[22] Vulgar Errors, Bk. I. ch. viii.; Astley's Voyages, IV. 583.
[23] A few years before Marsden's publication, the Historical branch of the R. S. of Science at Göttingen appears to have put forth as the subject of a prize Essay the Geography of the Travels of Carpini, Rubruquis, and especially of Marco Polo. (See L. of M. Polo, by Zurla, in Collezione di Vite e Ritratti d'Illustri Italiani. Pad. 1816.)
[24] See Städtewesen des Mittelalters, by K. D. Hüllmann, Bonn, 1829, vol. iv.
After speaking of the Missions of Pope Innocent IV. and St. Lewis, this author sketches the Travels of the Polos, and then proceeds:—"Such are the clumsily compiled contents of this ecclesiastical fiction (Kirchengeschichtlichen Dichtung) disguised as a Book of Travels, a thing devised generally in the spirit of the age, but specially in the interests of the Clergy and of Trade. … This compiler's aim was analogous to that of the inventor of the Song of Roland, to kindle enthusiasm for the conversion of the Mongols, and so to facilitate commerce through their dominions. … Assuredly the Poli never got further than Great Bucharia, which was then reached by many Italian Travellers. What they have related of the regions of the Mongol Empire lying further east consists merely of recollections of the bazaar and travel-talk of traders from those countries; whilst the notices of India, Persia, Arabia, and Ethiopia, are borrowed from Arabic Works. The compiler no doubt carries his audacity in fiction a long way, when he makes his hero Marcus assert that he had been seventeen years in Kúblái's service," etc. etc. (pp. 360–362).
In the French edition of Malcolm's History of Persia (II. 141), Marco is styled "prêtre Venetien"! I do not know whether this is due to Sir John or to the translator.
[Polo is also called "a Venetian Priest," in a note, vol. i., p. 409, of the original edition of London, 1815, 2 vols., 4to.—H. C.]
XII. CONTEMPORARY RECOGNITION OF POLO AND HIS BOOK.
[Sidenote: How far was there diffusion of his Book in his own day?]
75. But we must return for a little to Polo's own times. Ramusio states, as we have seen, that immediately after the first commission of Polo's narrative to writing (in Latin as he imagined), many copies of it were made, it was translated into the vulgar tongue, and in a few months all Italy was full of it.
The few facts that we can collect do not justify this view of the rapid and diffused renown of the Traveller and his Book. The number of MSS. of the latter dating from the 14th century is no doubt considerable, but a large proportion of these are of Pipino's condensed Latin Translation, which was not put forth, if we can trust Ramusio, till 1320, and certainly not much earlier. The whole number of MSS. in various languages that we have been able to register, amounts to about eighty. I find it difficult to obtain statistical data as to the comparative number of copies of different works existing in manuscript. With Dante's great Poem, of which there are reckoned close upon 500 MSS.,[1] comparison would be inappropriate. But of the Travels of Friar Odoric, a poor work indeed beside Marco Polo's, I reckoned thirty-nine MSS., and could now add at least three more to the list. [I described seventy-three in my edition of Odoric.—H. C.] Also I find that of the nearly contemporary work of Brunetto Latini, the Tresor, a sort of condensed Encyclopaedia of knowledge, but a work which one would scarcely have expected to approach the popularity of Polo's Book, the Editor enumerates some fifty MSS. And from the great frequency with which one encounters in Catalogues both MSS. and early printed editions of Sir John Maundevile, I should suppose that the lying wonders of our English Knight had a far greater popularity and more extensive diffusion than the veracious and more sober marvels of Polo.[2] To Southern Italy Polo's popularity certainly does not seem at any time to have extended. I cannot learn that any MS. of his Book exists in any Library of the late Kingdom of Naples or in Sicily.[3]
Dante, who lived for twenty-three years after Marco's work was written, and who touches so many things in the seen and unseen Worlds, never alludes to Polo, nor I think to anything that can be connected with his Book. I believe that no mention of Cathay occurs in the Divina Commedia. That distant region is indeed mentioned more than once in the poems of a humbler contemporary, Francesco da Barberino, but there is nothing in his allusions besides this name to suggest any knowledge of Polo's work.[4]
Neither can I discover any trace of Polo or his work in that of his contemporary and countryman, Marino Sanudo the Elder, though this worthy is well acquainted with the somewhat later work of Hayton, and many of the subjects which he touches in his own book would seem to challenge a reference to Marco's labours.
[Sidenote: Contemporary references to Polo.]
76. Of contemporary or nearly contemporary references to our Traveller by name, the following are all that I can produce, and none of them are new.
First there is the notice regarding his presentation of his book to
Thibault de Cepoy, of which we need say no more (supra, p. 68).
Next there is the Preface to Friar Pipino's Translation, which we give at length in the Appendix (E) to these notices. The phraseology of this appears to imply that Marco was still alive, and this agrees with the date assigned to the work by Ramusio. Pipino was also the author of a Chronicle, of which a part was printed by Muratori, and this contains chapters on the Tartar wars, the destruction of the Old Man of the Mountain, etc., derived from Polo. A passage not printed by Muratori has been extracted by Prof. Bianconi from a MS. of this Chronicle in the Modena Library, and runs as follows:—
"The matters which follow, concerning the magnificence of the Tartar