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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
POLO'S INFLUENCE ON GEOGRAPHY
139
Panfilo Castaldi was born in 1398, and died in 1490, and
that he gives the story as he found it in an article written
by Dr. Jacopo Facen, of Feltre, in a (Venetian ?) newspaper
called Il Gondoliere, No. 103, of 27th December, 1843.
In a later paper Mr. Curzon thus recurs to the subject :
" Though none of the early block-books have dates affixed to them, many of them are with reason supposed to be more ancient than any books printed with moveable types. Their resemblance to Chinese block-books is so exact, that they would almost seem to be copied from the books commonly used in China. The impressions are taken of on one side of the paper only, and in binding, both the Chinese, and ancient German, or Dutch block-books, the blank sides of the pages are placed opposite each other, and sometimes pasted together . . . . The impressions are not taken off with printer's ink, but with a brown paint or colour, of a much thinner description., more in the nature of Indian ink, as we call it, which is used in printing Chinese books. Altogether the German and Oriental block-books are so precisely alike, in almost every respect, that . . we must suppose that the process of printing then must have been copied from ancient Chinese specimens, brought from thatcountry by some early travellers, whose names have not been handed down to our times."
The writer then refers to the tradition about Guttemberg (so it is
stated on this occasion, not Faust) having learned Castaldi's art,
etc., mentioning a circumstance which he supposes to indicate
that Guttemberg had relations with Venice ; and appears to
assent to the probability of the story of the art having been
founded on specimens brought home by Marco Polo.
This story was in recent years diligently propagated in
Northern Italy, and resulted in the erection at Feltre of a
public statue of Panfilo Castaldi, bearing this inscription (besides
others of like tenor)
11.
" To Panfilo Castaldi the illustrious Inventor of _Movable
Printing Types, Italy renders this Tribute of Honour,
too long deferred."
In the first edition of this book I devoted a special note to
the exposure of the worthlessness of the evidence for this story.t
This note was, with the present Essay, translated and published
at Venice by Comm. Berchet, but this challenge to the supporters
* History of Printing in China and Europe, in Philobiblon, vol. vi. p. 23.
t See Appendix L. in First Edition.
VOL. I.
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