The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano
88. Mr. Curzon’s own observations, which I have italicised about
1484 words | Chapter 221
the resemblance of the two systems are, however, very striking,
and seem clearly to indicate the derivation of the art from China.
But I should suppose that in the tradition, if there ever was any
genuine tradition of the kind at Feltre (a circumstance worthy of all
doubt), the name of Marco Polo was introduced merely because it was
so prominent a name in Eastern Travel. The fact has been generally
overlooked and forgotten[24] that, for many years in the course of
the 14th century, not only were missionaries of the Roman Church and
Houses of the Franciscan Order established in the chief cities of
China, but a regular trade was carried on overland between Italy and
China, by way of Tana (or Azov), Astracan, Otrar and Kamul, insomuch
that instructions for the Italian merchant following that route form
the two first chapters in the Mercantile Handbook of Balducci Pegolotti
(_circa_ 1340).[25] Many a traveller besides Marco Polo might therefore
have brought home the block-books. And this is the less to be ascribed
to him because he so curiously omits to speak of the art of printing,
when his subject seems absolutely to challenge its description.
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[1] “They draw nowadays the map of the world in a laughable manner, for
they draw the inhabited earth as a circle; but this is impossible,
both from what we see and from reason.” (_Meteorolog. Lib._ II.
cap. 5.) Cf. _Herodotus_, iv. 36.
[2] In Dante’s Cosmography, Jerusalem is the centre of our οἰκουμένη,
whilst the Mount of Purgatory occupies the middle of the Antipodal
hemisphere:—
“Come ciò sia, se’ l vuoi poter pensare,
Dentro raccolto immagina Sion
Con questo monte in su la terra stare,
Sì, ch’ambodue hann’un solo orrizon
E diversi emisperi”....
—_Purg._ IV. 67.
[3] The belief, with this latter ground of it, is alluded to in curious
verses by Jacopo Alighieri, Dante’s son:—
“_E molti gran Profeti_
_Filosofi e Poeti_
Fanno il colco dell’Emme
Dov’è Gerusalemme;
_Se le loro scritture_
_Hanno vere figure:_
_E per la Santa fede_
_Cristiana ancor si vede_
_Che’ l’ suo principio Cristo_
Nel suo mezzo _conquisto_
_Per cui prese morte_
_E vi pose la sorte_.”
—(_Rime Antiche Toscane_, III. 9.)
Though the general meaning of the second couplet is obvious,
the expression _il colco dell’Emme_, “the couch of the M,” is
puzzling. The best solution that occurs to me is this: In looking
at the world map of Marino Sanudo, noticed on p. _133_, as engraved
by Bongars in the _Gesta Dei per Francos_, you find geometrical
lines laid down, connecting the N.E., N.W., S.E., and S.W. points,
and thus forming a square inscribed in the circular disk of the
Earth, with its diagonals passing through the Central Zion. The eye
easily discerns in these a great M inscribed in the circle, with
its middle angular point at Jerusalem. Gervasius of Tilbury (with
some confusion in his mind between tropic and equinoxial, like that
which Pliny makes in speaking of the Indian Mons Malleus) says that
“some are of opinion that the Centre is in the place where the Lord
spoke to the woman of Samaria at the well, for there, at the summer
solstice, the noonday sun descends perpendicularly into the water
of the well, casting no shadow; a thing which the philosophers say
occurs at Syene”! (_Otia Imperialia_, by Liebrecht, p. 1.)
[4] This circumstance does not, however, show in the Vulgate.
[5]
“Veggiamo in prima in general la terra
Come risiede e come il mar la serra.
Un T dentro ad un O mostra il disegno
Come in tre parti fu diviso il Mondo,
E la superiore è il maggior regno
Che quasi piglia la metà del tondo.
ASIA chiamata: il gambo ritto è segno
Che parte il terzo nome dal secondo
AFFRICA dico da EUROPA: il mare
Mediterran tra esse in mezzo appare.”
—_La Sfera_, di F. Leonardo di Stagio Dati,
Lib. iii. st. 11.
[6] _De Civ. Dei_, xvi. 17, quoted by _Peschel_, 92.
[7] _Opus Majus_, Venice ed. pp. 142, _seqq._
[8] _Peschel_, p. 195. This had escaped me.
[9] By the Rev. W. L. Bevan, M.A., and the Rev. H. W. Phillott, M.A.
In Asia, they point out, the only name showing any recognition of
modern knowledge is Samarcand.
[10] His work, _Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis_, intended to
stimulate a new Crusade, has three capital maps, besides that of
the World, one of which, translated, but otherwise in facsimile, is
given at p. 18 of this volume. But besides these maps, he gives,
in a tabular form of parallel columns, the reigning sovereigns in
Europe and Asia connected with his historical retrospect, just on
the plan presented in Sir Harris Nicolas’s Chronology of History.
[11] I do not see that al-Birúni deserves the credit in this respect
assigned to him by Professor Peschel, so far as one can judge
from the data given by Sprenger (_Peschel_, p. 128; _Post und
Reise-Routen_, 81–82.)
[12] For example, _Delli_, which Polo does not name; _Diogil_ (Deogír);
on the Coromandel coast _Setemelti_, which I take to be a clerical
error for _Sette-Templi_, the Seven Pagodas; round the Gulf of
Cambay we have _Cambetum_ (Kambayat), _Cocintaya_ (Kokan-Tana, see
vol. ii. p. 396), _Goga, Baroche, Neruala_ (Anharwala), and to the
north _Moltan_. Below Multan are _Hocibelch_ and _Bargelidoa_, two
puzzles. The former is, I think, _Uch-baligh_, showing that part of
the information was from Perso-Mongol sources.
[13] I see it stated by competent authority that _Romman_ is often
applied to any prose composition in a Romance language.
In or about 1426, Prince Pedro of Portugal, the elder brother of
the illustrious Prince Henry, being on a visit to Venice, was
presented by the Signory with a copy of Marco Polo’s book, together
with a map already alluded to. (_Major’s P. Henry_, pp. 61, 62.)
[14] This is partly due also to Fra Mauro’s reversion to the fancy of
the circular disk limiting the inhabited portion of the earth.
[15] An early graphic instance of this is Ruysch’s famous map
(1508). The following extract of a work printed as late as 1533
is an example of the like confusion in verbal description: “The
Territories which are beyond the limits of Ptolemy’s Tables have
not yet been described on certain authority. Behind the Sinae and
the Seres, and beyond 180° of East Longitude, many countries were
discovered by one [_quendam_] Marco Polo a Venetian and others,
and the sea-coasts of those countries have now recently again been
explored by Columbus the Genoese and Amerigo Vespucci in navigating
the Western Ocean.... To this part (of Asia) belong the territory
called that of the _Bachalaos_ [or Codfish, Newfoundland],
_Florida_, _the Desert of Lop_, _Tangut_, _Cathay_, the realm of
_Mexico_ (wherein is the vast city of _Temistitan_, built in the
middle of a great lake, but which the older travellers styled
QUINSAY), besides _Paria_, _Uraba_, and the countries of the
_Canibals_.” (_Joannis Schoneri Carolostadtii Opusculum Geogr._,
quoted by Humboldt, _Examen_, V. 171, 172.)
[16] In Robert Parke’s Dedication of his Translation of Mendoza’s,
London, 1st of January, 1589, he identifies China and Japan with
the regions of which _Paulus Venetus_ and _Sir John Mandeuill_
“wrote long agoe.”—_MS. Note by Yule_.
[17] “_Totius Europae et Asiae Tabula Geographica, Auctore Thoma D.
Aucupario. Edita Argentorati_, MDXXII.” Copied in Witsen.
[18] This strange association of _Balor_ (_i.e._, Bolor, that name of
so many odd vicissitudes, see pp. 178–179 _infra_) with the shut-up
Israelites must be traced to a passage which Athanasius Kircher
quotes from _R. Abraham Pizol_ (qu. Peritsol?): “_Regnum_, inquit,
Belor _magnum et excelsum nimis, juxta omnes illos qui scripserunt
Historicos_. Sunt in eo Judaei _plurimi inclusi, et illud in latere
Orientali et Boreali_,” etc. (_China Illustrata_, p. 49.)
[19] Vol. ii. p. 1.
[20] _A short Account of Libraries of Italy_, by the Hon. R. Curzon
(the late Lord de la Zouche); in _Bibliog. and Hist. Miscellanies;
Philobiblon Society_, vol. i, 1854, pp. 6. _seqq._
[21] P. del Natali was Bishop of Equilio, a city of the Venetian
Lagoons, in the latter part of the 14th century. (See _Ughelli,
Italia Sacra_, X. 87.) There is no ground whatever for connecting
him with these inventions. The story of the glass types appears
to rest entirely and solely on one obscure passage of Sansovino,
who says that under the Doge Marco Corner (1365–1367): “_certe
Natale Veneto lasciò un libro della materie delle forme da giustar
intorno alle lettere, ed il modo di formarle di vetro_.” There is
absolutely nothing more. Some kind of stencilling seems indicated.
[22] _History of Printing in China and Europe_, in _Philobiblon_, vol.
vi. p. 23.
[23] See _Appendix L_. in First Edition.
[24] Ramusio himself appears to have been entirely unconscious of it,
_vide supra_, p. 3.
[25] This subject has been fully treated in _Cathay and the Way
Thither_.
XIV. EXPLANATIONS REGARDING THE BASIS ADOPTED FOR THE
PRESENT TRANSLATION.
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