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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
2
PROI..
MARCO POLO
•
Tartar, or Indian, or any mail of any nation, who in
his own person hath bad so much knowledge and
experience of the divers parts of the World and its
Wonders as hath had this Messer Marco ! And for
that reason he bethought himself that it would be a
very great pity did he not cause to be put in writing
all the great marvels that he had seen, or on sure
information heard of, so that other people who had not
these advantages might, by his Book, get such know-
ledge. And I may tell you that in acquiring this know-
ledge be spent in those various parts of the World good
six-and-twenty years. Now, being thereafter an inmate
of the Prison at Genoa, he caused Messer Rusticiano
of Pisa, who was in the said Prison likewise, to reduce
the whole to writing ; and this befell in the year 1 298
from the birth of Jesus.
CHAPTER I.
HOW THE TWO BROTHERS POLO SET FORTH FROM CONSTANTINOPLE
TO TRAVERSE THE WORLD.
IT came to pass in the year of Christ I26o, when
Baldwin was reigning at Constantinople,' that Messer
Nicolas Polo, the father of my lord Mark, and Messer
Maffeo Polo, the brother of Messer Nicolas, were at
the said city of CONSTANTINOPLE, whither they had gone
from Venice with their merchants' wares. Now these
two Brethren, men singularly noble, wise, and provident,
took counsel together to cross the GREATER SEA on a
venture of trade ; so they laid in a store of jewels and
set forth from Constantinople, crossing the Sea to
SOLDAIA.2
1
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