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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
CONTEMPORARY RECOGNITION IIJ
Dante's great Poem, of which there are reckoned close upon 500
MSS.,* comparison would be inappropriate. But of the Travels
of Friar Odoric, a poor work indeed beside Marco Polo's, I
reckoned thirty-nine MSS., and could now add at least three
more to the list. [ I described seventy-three in my edition of
Odoric. H. C.] Also I find that of the nearly contemporary work
of Brunetto Latini, the Tresor, a sort of condensed Encyclopaedia
of knowledge, but a work which one would scarcely have expected
to approach the popularity of Polo's Book, the Editor enumerates
some fifty MSS. And from the great frequency with which one
encounters in Catalogues both MSS. and early printed editions
of Sir John Maundevile, I should suppose that the lying wonders
of our English Knight had a far greater popularity and more
extensive diffusion than the veracious and more sober marvels of
Polo.t To Southern Italy Polo's popularity certainly does not
seem at any time to have extended. I cannot learn that any
MS. of his Book exists in anv Library of the late Kingdom of
r
Naples or in Sicily.+
Dante, who lived for twenty-three years after Marco's work
* See Ferrazzi, Manuele Dantesca, Bassano, 1865, p. 729.
t In Quaritch's catalogue for Nov. 1870 there is only one old edition of Polo there are nine of Maundevile. In 1839 there were nineteen MSS. of the latter author catalogued in the British Museum Library. There are now only six of Marco Polo. At least twenty-five editions of Maundevile and only five of Polo were printed in the 15th century.
$ I have made personal enquiry at the National Libraries of Naples and Palermo, at the Communal Library in the latter city, and at the Benedictine Libraries of Monte Cassino, Monreale, S. Martino, and Catania.
In the 15th century, when Polo's book had become more generally diffused we find three copies of it in the Catalogue of the Library of Charles VI. of France, made at the Louvre in 1423, by order of the Duke of Bedford.
The estimates of value are curious. They are in sols parisis, which we shall not estimate very wrongly at a shilling each :-
" No. 295. Item. Marcus Paulus ; en ung cahier escript de lettre formée, en fzan ois, à deux coulombes. Commt. ou iie• fo. ` deux frères prescheurs,' et ou derrenier ` que sa arrières.' X. s. p.
* * *
" No. 334. Item. Marcus Paulus. Couvert de drap d'or, bien escript & enluminé, de lettre de forme en frazzfois, á deux coulombes. Comma. ou iie• fol. ; ` il fut Roys,' & ou derrenier ` propremen,' á deux fermouers de laton. XV. s. p.
t
*
*
No. J36. Item. Marcus Paulus ; non enluminé, escript en frais ois, de lettre de forme. Co,,i;,zt. ou iie fo. vocata moult grant,' & ou derrenier ilec dist il.' Couvert de cuir blanc, á deux fermouers de laton. XII. s. p."
(Inventaire de la Bibliothèque du Roi Charles III., etc., Paris, Société des Bibliophiles, 1867.)
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