which with audible voice foretel the place and manner of Alexander's death. With this Alexandrian legend some of the later forms of the story had mixed up one of Christian origin about the Dry Tree, L'Arbre Sec. And they had also adopted the Oriental story of the Land of Darkness and the mode of escape from it, which Polo relates at p. 416 of vol. ii. long done to gular modern 74. We have seen in the most probable interpretation of the nickname Milioni that Polo's popular reputation in his lifetime was of a questionable kind; and a contem- Injustice porary chronicler, already quoted, has told us how on Polo. Sinhis death-bed the Traveller was begged by anxious instance. friends to retract his extraordinary stories.* A little later one who copied the Book “per passare tempo e malinconia" says frankly that he puts no faith in it. Sir Thomas Brown is content "to carry a wary eye" in reading "Paulus Venetus; but others of our countrymen in the last century express strong doubts whether he ever was in Tartary or China. ‡ Marsden's edition might well have extinguished the last sparks of scepticism. Hammer meant praise in calling Polo "der Vater orientalischer Hodogetik," in spite of the uncouthness of the eulogy. But another grave German writer, ten years after Marsden's publication, put forth in a serious book that the whole story was a clumsy imposture! § * See passage from Jacopo d'Acqui, supra, p. lxxxii. It is the transcriber of one of the Florence MSS. who appends this terminal note :-"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.” Vulgar Errors, Bk. I. ch. viii.; Astley's Voyages, IV. 583. $ 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 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 traveltalk of traders from those countries; whilst the notices of India, Persia, Arabia, XII. CONTEMPORARY RECOGNITION OF POLO AND HIS BOOK. 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, his Book in it was translated into the vulgar tongue, and in a few months all Italy was full of it. How far was there diffusion of his own day? The few facts that we can collect seem scarcely to 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 seventy-five. 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.,* comparison would be inappropriate. But of the Travels of Friar Odoric, a poor work indeed beside Marco Polo's, I reckoned thirtynine MSS., and could now add at least three more to the list. Also I find that of the nearly contemporary work of Brunetto Latini, the Tresor, a sort of condensed Encyclopædia 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.t To Southern Italy Polo's popularity 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 Kublai's service," &c., &c. (pp. 360-362). * See Ferrazzi, Manuele Dantesca, Bassano, 1865, p. 729. In Quaritch's last catalogue (Nov. 1870) there is only one old edition of Polo; there are nine of Maundevile. In 1839 there were nineteen MSS. of the latter author catalogued in the British Museum Library. There are now only five of Marco Polo. At least twenty-five editions of Maundevile and only five of Polo were printed in the 15th century. certainly does not seem at any time to have extended. I cannot learn that any MS. of his Book exists in any Library of Naples or Sicily.* 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.† Neither can I discover any trace of Polo or his work in that of his contemporary and countryman, Marino Sanuto the Elder, though this worthy is well acquainted with the somewhat later work of Hayton, and many of the subjects which * I have made personal inquiry at the National Libraries of Naples and Palermo, at the Communal Library in the latter city, and at the Benedictine Libraries of Monte Cassino, Monreale, S. Martino, and Catania. In the fifteenth century, when Polo's Book had become more generally diffused, we find three copies of it in the Catalogue of the Library of Charles VI. of France, made at the Louvre in 1423, by order of the Duke of Bedford. The estimates of value are curious. They are in sols parisis, of which ten, or half a livre, may be reckoned equal to 9s. 2d. :— "No. 295. Item Marcus Paulus; en ung cahier escript de lettre formée en francois a deux coulombes. Commt. au ii. fo. 'deux frères prescheurs,' et ou derrenier 'que sa arrières.' Xs. p. * * "No. 334. Item Marcus Paulus. Couvert de drap d'or, bien escript et enluminé de lettre de forme francois, a deux coulombes. Commt, ou ii. fol. 'il fut Roys,' et ou derrenier 'propremen.' A deux fermouers de laton. XVs. p. * "No. 336. Item Marcus Paulus, non enluminé escript en francois de lettre de forme. Commt, ou ii. fo. vocata moult grant' et ou derrenier 'ilec dist il.' Couvert de cuir blanc. A deux fermouers de laton. XIIs. p. (Inventaire de la Bibl., &c., Paris, 1867.) + See Del Regimento e de' Costumi delle Donne, di Messer Francesco da Barberino, Roma, 1815, pp. 166 and 271. This author was born the year before Dante (1264), and though he lived to 1348 it is probable that the poems in question were written in his earlier years. Cathay was no doubt known by dim repute long before the final return of the Polos, both through the original journey of Nicolo and Maffeo, and by information gathered by the Missionary Friars. Indeed, in 1278 Pope Nicolas III., in consequence of information said to have come from Abaka Khan of Persia, that Kublai was a baptized Christian, sent a party of Franciscans with a long letter to the Kaan Quobley, as he is termed. They never seem to have reached their destination. And in 1289 Nicolas IV. intrusted a similar mission to Friar John of Monte Corvino, which eventually led to very tangible results. Neither of the Papal letters, however, mention Cathay (see Mosheim, App. pp. 76 and 94). he touches in his own book would seem to challenge a reference to Marco's labours. 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. Contempo rary references to Polo. First there is the notice regarding his presentation of his book to Thibault de Cepoy, of which we need say no more (supra, p. xcvi). 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, &c., 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 Emperors, whom in their language they call Cham as we have said, are related by Marcus Paulus the Venetian in a certain Book of his which has been translated by me into Latin out of the Lombardic Vernacular. Having gained the notice of the Emperor himself and become attached to his service, he passed nearly 27 years in the Tartar countries.” Again we have that mention of Marco by Friar Jacopo d'Acqui, which we have quoted in connection with his capture by the Genoese, at p. lxxxii. And the Florentine historian GIOVANNI VILLANI,† when alluding to the Tartars, says : "Let him who would make full acquaintance with their history examine the book of Friar Hayton, Lord of Colcos in Armenia, which he made at the instance of Pope Clement V., and also the Book called Milione which was made by Messer Marco Polo of Venice, who tells much about their power and dominion, having spent a long time among them. And so let us quit the Tartars and return to our subject, the History of Florence." + * See Muratori, IX. 583, seqq.; Bianconi, Mem. I. p. 37. † G. Villani died in the great plague of 1348. But his book was begun soon after Marco's was written, for he states that it was the sight of the memorials of greatness which he witnessed at Rome, during the Jubilee of 1300, that put it into his head to write the history of the rising glories of Florence, and that he began the work after his return home (Bk. VIII. ch. 36). Book V. ch. 29. 77. Lastly, we learn from a curious passage in a medical work by PIETRO OF ABANO, a celebrated physician and philo sopher, and a man of Polo's own generation, that he Further conwas personally acquainted with the Traveller. In a temporary discussion on the old notion of the non-habitability of the Equatorial regions, which Pietro controverts, he says:* references. "In the country of the ZINGI there is seen a star as big as a sack. I know a man who has seen it, and he told me it had a faint light like a piece of a cloud, and is always in the south.† I have been told of this and other matters by MARCO the Venetian, the most extensive traveller and the most diligent inquirer whom I have ever known. He saw this same star under the Antarctic; he described it as having a great tail, and drew a figure of it thus. He also told me that he saw the Antarctic Pole at an altitude above the earth apparently equal to the length of a soldier's lance, whilst the Arctic Pole was as much below the horizon. 'Tis from that place, he says, that they export to us camphor, lign-aloes, and brazil. He says the heat there is intense, and the habitations few. And these things he witnessed in a certain Island at which he arrived by Sea. He tells me also that there are (wild?) men there, and also certain very great rams that have very coarse and stiff wool just like the bristles of our pigs."‡ Star at the Antarctic as sketched by Marco Polo. * Petri Aponensis Medici ac Philosophi Celeberrimi, Conciliator, Venice, 1521, fol. 97. Peter was born in 1250 at Abano, near Padua, and was Professor of Medicine at the University in the latter city. He twice fell into the claws of the Unholy Office, and only escaped them by death in 1316. The great Magellanic cloud? In the account of Vincent Yanez Pinzon's Voyage to the S.W. in 1499 as given in Kamusio (III. 15) after Pietro Martire d'Anghieria, it is said:"Taking the astrolabe in hand, and ascertaining the Antarctic Pole, they did not see any star like our Pole Star; but they related that they saw another manner of stars very different from ours, and which they could not clearly discern because of a certain dimness which diffused itself about those stars, and obstructed the view of them." The great Magellan cloud is mentioned by an old Arab writer as a white blotch at the foot of Canopus, visible in the Tehama along the Red Sea, but not in Nejd or 'Irák. Humboldt, in quoting this, calculates that in A.D. 1000 the Great Magellan would have been visible at Aden some degrees above the horizon (Examen, V. 235). This passage contains points that are omitted in Polo's book, besides the drawing implied to be from Marco's own hand! The Island is of course Sumatra. The animal is perhaps the peculiar Sumatran wild-goat, figured by Marsden, the hair of which on the back is "coarse and strong, almost like bristles" (Sumatra, p. 115). |