| Books of the Marvels of the World | |
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A page of The Travels of Marco Polo |
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| Author(s) | Rustichello da Pisa and Marco Polo |
| Original title | Livres des merveilles du monde |
| Country | Republic of Venice |
| Language | Old French |
| Publication date | c. 1300 |
Books of the Marvels of the World (French: Livres des merveilles du monde) or Description of the World (Divisament dou monde), also nicknamed Il Milione ("The Million") or Oriente Poliano and commonly called The Travels of Marco Polo, is a 13th-century travelogue written down by Rustichello da Pisa from stories told by Marco Polo, describing the travels of the latter through Asia, Persia, China, and Indonesia between 1271 and 1291.[1][2]
It was a very famous and popular book, even in the 14th 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 some have questioned whether or not Marco Polo ever actually traveled to the court or was just repeating stories that he had heard from other travellers.[3] The book was written in Old French by Rustichello da Pisa, a romance author of the time, who was reportedly working from accounts which he had heard from Marco Polo when they were imprisoned in Genoa having been captured while on a ship.[4] A 1937 book titled "The History of the United States", by Willam B Guitteau, offers the following claim, "Returning home at last, Marco Polo subsequently became a political prisoner in Genoa; and to while away the time wrote the story of his travels. This book was first printed in 1477; it was read critically by Christopher Columbus and a copy with marginal notes by the great navigator may still be seen in the Columbian Library at Seville."
Contents |
The title Il Milione comes from the Polo family's use of the name Emilione to distinguish themselves from the numerous other Venetian families bearing the name Polo.[5]
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[6] and were back in Venice in 1295. 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.
The book was then named Devisament dou monde and Livres des merveilles du monde in French, and De mirabilibus mundi in Latin.[7]
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.
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 a positive light. An example of this is after Kublai Khan defeats a Christian rebel. Marco Polo makes a point of showing Khan's 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 your god did well in not helping against the right.'"[8]
Marco Polo, a Christian, is often considered to have been flawed by his contemporary 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. Often reported is a comment regarding a Muslim, which, by a simple read, is clearly not regarding his religion but rather than his personal behaviour. In Book II Polo wrote: "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."[9], any cultural bias attributed to Polo, seems unjustified in the light of the person's notoriety. The named Ahmad was a multiple rapist and murderer who was regarded as evil-doer by a large number of the populace. Most scholars would not credit the revisionist suggestion that Polo's unfavorable description of this advisor, though superstitious, had anything to do with his religion, especially seeing as how he depicts other followers of Islam in a very positive light.[10]
One of the many instances in which Polo demonstrates his respect and admiration towards followers of other religions occurs in his description of the "Bramins", whom he claimed were "the best and most honourable merchants that can be found. No consideration whatever can induce them to speak an untruth, even though their lives should depend upon it. They have also an abhorrence of robbery or of purloining the goods of other persons. They are likewise remarkable for the virtue of continence..."[11]
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.[12] 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. Polo's writings included descriptions of cannibals and spice growers.
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.[13] 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.[14]
The editor, Giovan Battista Ramusio, collated manuscripts from the first part of the fourteenth century,[15] 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,[16] 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[17] 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.
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 English 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.