IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE TRAVELLERS
Is
Of the three sons of Andrea Polo of S. Felice, Marco
seems to have been the eldest, and Maffeo the youngest.*
They were all engaged in commerce, and apparently Marco the
in a partnership, which to some extent held good even Elder.
when the two younger had been many years absent in the
Far East.- Marco seems to have been established for a time
at Constantinople,+ and also to have had a house (no doubt of
business) at Soldaia, in the Crimea, where his son and daughter,
Nicolo and Maraca by name, were living in 1280. This year is
the date of the Elder Marco's Will, executed at Venice, and
when he was " weighed down by bodily ailment." Whether he
survived for any length of time we do not know.
Nicolo Polo, the second of the Brothers, had two legi-
timate sons, MARCO, the Author of our Book, born in 1254,§
and MAFFEO, of whose place in the family we shall Nicolo and
have a few words to say presently. The story opens, Maffeo com-
~ mence their
as we have said, in 1260, when we find the two travels.
brothers, Nicola and Maffeo the Elder, at Constantinople.
How long they had been absent from Venice we are not dis-
tinctly told. Nicolo had left his wife there behind him ;
Maffeo apparently was a bachelor. In the year named they
started on a trading venture to the Crimea, whence a succes-
sion of openings and chances, recounted in the Introductory
chapters of Marco's work, carried them far north along the
Volga, and thence first to Bokhara, and then to the Court
of the Great Kaan Kúblái in the Far East, on or within the
borders of CATHAY. That a great and civilized country so
called existed in the extremity of Asia had already been
reported in Europe by the Friars Plano Carpini (1246) and
William Rubruquis (1253), who had not indeed reached its
mistake, as will be explained further on (see p. 74, note). In those days the demarcation between Patrician and non-Patrician at Venice, where all classes shared in commerce, all were (generally speaking) of one race, and where there were neither castles, domains, nor trains of horsemen, formed no wide gulf. Still it is interesting to establish the verity of the old tradition of Marco's technical nobility.
* Marco's seniority rests only on the assertion of Ramusio, who also calls Maffeo older than Nicolo. But in Marco the Elder's Will these two are always (3 times) specified as " Nicolaus et lllatheats."
t This seems implied in the Elder Marco's Will (1280) : " h ein de bonis qua' nie
habere contingunt de fraternâ Compagniâ a suprascriptis .Nicolao et lllatheo Paulo," etc. + In his Will he terms himself " Ego Marcus Polo quondam de Constantinopoli." § There is no real ground for doubt as to this. All the extant MSS. agree in
making Marco fifteen years old when his father returned to Venice in 1269.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.