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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
VARIOUS TYPES OF THE TEXT
95
to the Sieur de Cepoy, there can be no doubt that it is the true
representative of that recension.
III. The next Type of Text is that found in Friar
Pipino's Latin version. It is the type of which MSS. are by
far the most numerous. In it condensation and curtail- Third;
Friar Pi-
ment are carried a good deal further than in Type II. pinós Latin.
The work is also divided into three Books. But this division does
not seem to have originated with Pipino, as we find it in the
ruder and perhaps older Latin version of which we have already
spoken under Type I. And we have demonstrated that this
ruder Latin is a translation from an Italian copy. It is probable
therefore that an Italian version similarly divided was the
common source of what we call the Geographic Latin and of
Pipino's more condensed version.*
Pipino's version appears to have been executed in the later
years of Polo's life.1- But I can see no ground for the idea enter-
tained by Baldelli-Boni and Professor Bianconi that it was
executed with Polo's cognizance and retouched by him.
The absence of effective publication in the Middle
Ages led to a curious complication of translation and The Latin
retranslation. Thus the Latin version published by of Grynae os
a tránslatin
Gryna us in the Novus Orbis (Basle, 1532) is different at fifth hand.
from Pipino's, and yet clearly traceable to it as a base. In fact it
* The following comparison will also show that these two Latin versions have probably had a common source, such as is here suggested.
At the end of the Prologue the Geographic Text reads simply :-
" Or puis que je voz ai contez tot le fat dou prolegue ensi con voz avés oï, adonc (commencerai) le Livre."
Whilst the Geographic Latin has :-
" f ostquam recitavimus et diximus fada et condlctiones morum, itineru//l et ea quae nobis contigerunt per vins, incipiemus dicere ea quae vidimus. Et primo dicemus de Alinore 1germenia."
And Pipino :-
" Narratione facta nostri itineris, nunc ad ea narranda quae vidimus accedamus. Primo autenz Ar»zeniani Minorent describemus breviter."
t Friar Francesco Pipino of Bologna, a Dominican, is known also as the author of a lengthy chronicle from the time of the Frank Kings down to 1314 ; of a Latin Translation of the French History of the Conquest of the Holy Land, by Bernard the Treasurer ; and of a short Itinerary of a Pilgrimage to Palestine in 132o. Extracts from the Chronicle, and the version of Bernard, are printed in Muratori's Collection. As Pipino states himself to have executed the translation of Polo by order of his Superiors, it is probable that the task was set him at a general chapter of the order which was held at Bologna in 1315. (See Muratori, Ix. 583 ; and Quétif, Script. Ord. Praed. I. 539). We do not know why Rainusio assigned the translation specific-
ally to 1320, but he may have had grounds.
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