IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
NOTICES OF MARCO POLO IN LATER LIFE
6g
of the Paris Library (10,270 or Fr. 5649), and that of Bern,
which is substantially identical in its text with the former, and is,
as I believe, a copy of it.* The note runs as follows
" Here you have the Book of which My Lord THIEBAULT, Knight and LORD OF CEPOY, (whom may God assoil !) requested a copy from SIRE MARC POL, Burgess and Resident of the City of Venice. And the said Sire Marc Pol, being a very honourable Person, of high character and respect in many countries, because of his desire that what he had witnessed should be known throughout the World, and also for the honour and reverence he bore to the most excellent and puissant Prince my Lord CHARLES, Son of the King of France and COUNT OF VALOIS, gave and presented to the aforesaid Lord of Cepoy the first copy (that was taken) of his said Book after he had made the same. And very pleasing it was to him that his Book should be carried to the noble country of France and there made known by so worthy a gentleman. And from that copy which the said Messire Thibault, Sire de Cepoy above-named, did carry into France, Messire John, who was his eldest son and is the present Sire de Cepoy,; after his Father's decease did have a copy made, and that very first copy that was made of the Book after its being carried into France he did present to his very dear and dread Lord Monseigneur de Valois. Thereafter he gave copies of it to such of his friends as asked for them.
" And the copy above-mentioned was presented by the said Sire Marc Pol to the said Lord de Cepoy when the latter went to Venice, on the part of Monseigneur de Valois and of Madame the Empress his wife, as Vicar General for them both in all the Territories of the Empire of Constantinople. And this happened in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand three hundred and seven, and in the month of August."
Of the bearings of this memorandum on the literary history
of Polo's Book we shall speak in a following section.
46. When Marco married we have not been able to ascertain,
but it was no doubt early in the 14th century, for in 1324, we
find that he had two married daughters besides one un-
married. His wife's Christian name was Donata, but
of her family we have as yet found no assurance. I
name may have been
His marriage and his daughters. Marco as a merchant.
suspect, however, that her
Loredano (vide infra, p. 77).
Under 1311 we find a document which is of considerable in-
The note is not found in the Bodleian MS., which is the third known one of
this precise type.
t Messire Jean, the son of Thibault, is mentioned in the accounts of the latter in
the Chambre des Comptes at Paris, as having been with his Father in Romania. And in 1344 he commanded a confederate Christian armament sent to check the rising power of the Turks, and beat a great Turkish fleet in the Greek seas. (Heyd. I. 377 ;
Buchon, 468.)
~I i
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.