国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

> > > >
カラー New!IIIFカラー高解像度 白黒高解像度 PDF   日本語 English
0283 The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1
マルコ=ポーロ卿の記録 : vol.1
The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 / 283 ページ(カラー画像)

New!引用情報

doi: 10.20676/00000269
引用形式選択: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR読み取り結果

 

 

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.

q2