The Travels of Marco Polo

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The Travels of Marco Polo is the usual English title of Marco Polo's travel book, nicknamed Il Milione (The Million, see below) or Le Livre des Merveilles (The Book of Wonders). This description of his travels and stays in the Orient, including Asia, Persia, China and Indonesia, between 1271 and 1298 is also known as Oriente Poliano or Description of the World.[1] It was a very famous and popular book in the 13th century. The text claims that Marco Polo became an important figure at the court of the Mongol leader Kublai Khan. However, modern scholars debate how much of the account is accurate and whether or not Marco Polo ever actually traveled to the court or was just repeating stories that he had heard from other travellers. The book was actually written in French by a romance author of the time, Rustichello da Pisa, who was reportedly working from accounts which he had heard from Marco Polo when they were in prison in Genoa having been captured while on a ship. [2]

Contents

[edit] History

Milione comes from either The Million, which was a name used to mock the book, which many claimed was filled with "a million lies", or from Polo's family nickname Emilione. The "million lies" are derived mostly from the fact that many of the things described in his book are described in the hundred, thousands, or millions, and those reading his work were dubious of the large numbers, which gave to Marco Polo a reputation of exaggerating things. Modern assessments of the text usually consider it to be the record of an observant rather than imaginative or analytical traveler. Polo emerges as being curious and tolerant, and devoted to Kublai Khan and the dynasty that he served for two decades. The book is Polo's account of his travels to China, which he calls Cathay (north China) and Manji (south China). The Polo party left Venice in 1271. They left China in late 1290 or early 1291[3] and were back in Venice in 1292. The tradition is that Polo dictated the book to a romance writer, Rustichello da Pisa, while in prison in Genoa between 1298–1299; Rustichello may have worked up his first Franco-Italian version from Marco's notes.

[edit] Contents

The Travels is divided into four books. Book One describes the lands of the Middle East and Central Asia that Marco encountered on his way to China. Book Two describes China and the court of Kublai Khan. Book Three describes some of the coastal regions of the East: Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and the east coast of Africa. Finally, Book Four describes some of the recent wars among the Mongols and some of the regions of the far north, like Russia.

Nicolo and Maffeo Polo with Pope Gregory X in this 14th century miniature

[edit] Portrayal of Religion

The Christian audience of the text caused Marco Polo to appeal to Christians in his writing. Upon finding Christians on his travels he often places them in positive light. An example of this is after Kublai Khan defeats a Christian rebel. Marco Polo makes a point of showing his consolation of the Christians among his own army saying "'If the cross of your god has not helped Nayan,' he said, ' it was for a very good reason. Because it is good, it ought not to lend its aid except in a good and righteous cause. Nayan was a traitor who broke faith with his liege. Hence the fate that has befallen him was a vindication of the right. And the cross of you god did well in not helping against the right."[4]

Marco Polo maintains a Christian bias against some of the religions he encounters along the way. Most notable of these is his depiction of Buddhism as Idol-worship, partaking in both sexual indulgence and the taking of multiple wives. He also makes several derogratory comments regarding Islam. In Book II: "Among these [advisors] was a Saracen called Ahmad, a man of great energy and ability, who surpassed all the rest in his authority and influence over the Great Khan... this Ahmedd used to bewitch the Emperor by his black arts to such purpose that he won a ready hearing and acceptance."[5] Marco Polo makes several such comments but they are not as extreme as his commentary on traditional religions and Buddhism.

[edit] Legacy

The Travels was a rare popular success in an era before printing.

The impact of Polo's book on cartography was delayed: the first map in which some names mentioned by Polo appear was in the Catalan Atlas of Charles V (1375), which included thirty names in China and a number of other Asian toponyms.[6] In the mid-fifteenth century the cartographer of Murano, Fra Mauro, meticulously included all of Polo's toponyms in his map of the world. Marco Polo's description of the Far East and its riches inspired Christopher Columbus's decision to try to reach Asia by sea, in a westward route. A heavily annotated copy of Polo's book was among the belongings of Columbus.

[edit] Subsequent versions

Handwritten notes by Christopher Colombus on the latin edition of Marco Polo's Le livre des merveilles.

Marco Polo was accompanied in his trips by his father and uncle (both of whom had been to China previously), though neither of them published any known works about their journeys. The book was translated into many European languages within Marco Polo's lifetime, but the original manuscripts are now lost. About 150 copies in various languages are known to exist. However during copying and translating many errors were made, so there are many differences between the various copies[7]. The first English translation is the Elizabethan version by John Frampton, The most noble and famous travels of Marco Polo.

The first attempt to collate manuscripts and provide a critical edition was in a volume of collected travel narratives printed at Venice in 1559.[8]

The editor, Giovan Battista Ramusio, collated manuscripts from the first part of the fourteenth century,[9] which he considered to be "perfettamente corretto" ("perfectly correct"). He was of the opinion, not shared by modern scholars, that Marco had first written in Latin, quickly translated into Italian: he had apparently been able to use a Latin version "of marvelous antiquity" lent him by a friend in the Ghisi family of Venice.

The edition of Luigi Foscolo Benedetto, Marco Polo, Il Milione, under the patronage of the Comitato Geografico Nazionale Italiano (Florence: Olschki, 1928,) collated sixty additional manuscript sources, in addition to some eighty that had been collected by Sir Henry Yule, for his 1871 edition. It was Benedetto who identified Rustichello da Pisa,[10] as the original compiler or amanuensis, and his established text has provided the basis for many modern translations: his own in Italian (1932,) and Aldo Ricci's The Travels of Marco Polo (London, 1931).

The oldest surviving Polo manuscript is in Old French[11] heavily flavoured with Italian; for Benedetto, this "F' text is the basic original text, which he corrected by comparing it with the somewhat more detailed Latin of Ramusio, together with a Latin manuscript in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana.

An introduction to Marco Polo is Leonard Olschki, Marco Polo's Asia: An Introduction to His "Description of the World" Called 'Il Milione', translated by John A. Scott (Berkeley:University of California) 1960; it had its origins in the celebrations of the seven hundredth anniversary of Marco Polo's birth.

[edit] Other travelers in Central Asia

Other thirteenth-century European travelers who journeyed to the court of the Great Khan were André de Longjumeau, William of Rubruck and Giovanni da Pian del Carpine with Benedykt Polak. None of them visited China. The Moroccan merchant Ibn Battuta travelled through the Golden Horde and China subsequently in the early-to-mid 14th century. The 14th Century Anglo-Norman author John de Mandeville wrote an account of journeys in the East, but this was probably based on second-hand information and contains much apocryphal information.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Boulnois, Luce (2005). Silk Road: Monks, Warriors & Merchants. Hong Kong: Odessey Books & Guides. pp. 311–335. ISBN 962-217-721-2. 
  2. ^ Jackson, Peter (1998). "Marco Polo and his 'Travels'". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 61 (1): 82–101. 
  3. ^ The date usually given as 1292 was corrected in a note by Yang Chih-chiu and Ho Yung-chi,"Marco Polo Quits China" Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 9'.1 (September 1945), p. 51, reporting a
  4. ^ pp 118 The Travels Penguin Classic Edition 978-0-14-044057-7
  5. ^ pp 131 The Travels Penguin Classic Edition 978-0-14-044057-7
  6. ^ The exhibition in Venice celebrating the seven hundredth anniversary of Polo's birth L'Asia nella Cartographia dell'Occidente, Tullia Leporini Gasparace, curator, Venice 1955.
  7. ^ National Geographic, 2001
  8. ^ Its title was Secondo volume delle Navigationi et Viaggi nel quale si contengono l'Historia delle cose de' Tartari, et diuversi fatti de loro Imperatori, descritta da M. Marco Polo, Gentilhuomo di Venezia... . Homer Herriott, "The 'Lost' Toledo Manuscript of Marco Polo" Speculum 12.4 (October 1937), pp. 456-463 reports the recovery of a 1795 copy of the Ghisi manuscript, clarifying many obscure passages in Ramusio's printed text.
  9. ^ "scritti gia piu di dugento anni (a mio giudico)."
  10. ^ "Rusticien" in the French manuscripts.
  11. ^ Bibliothèque Nationale 1116.

[edit] External links

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