RAMuslo's own, as will be seen. YULE did something like it when he added passages from RAMUSIO to his version, marking the source by the use of square brackets. The more important additions to the standard text of F were collected with great completeness by Professor L. F. BENEDETTO in his edition of 1928; but they were not combined with the text of F, nor were they translated. The combination was done by BENEDETTO himself in his modern Italian version, and by the late A. RIccI's English translation of that (in the Broadway Travellers series, 1931). In neither of these versions is there anything to show which words come from F and which are additions, and still less is there any indication of the sources of the additions; while the additions themselves are in many cases really substitutions for the original words of F.
The present translation does then give the reader something new, — the first complete English version of F, and added to this all the important and a multitude of less important passages and words from other texts, all clearly distinguished by the use of italic letters; and finally the source of even the smallest word simply and conveniently shown in the margin. Some first beginning of critical notes has also been made, though it would have been foolish to attempt a complete methodical apparatus criticus which must probably have doubled the size of this volume without serving any useful purpose.
My obligations to Professor BENEDETTO are very great; and the fact that my work on F was done and many of my notes written before 1928 does not deprive him of the pioneer's honour. I was only proud to find, when his book appeared, how often we had come to the same conclusions, and if my debts to him are not by accident fully acknowledged in every case, I ask him here to accept my thanks for all the help which I have received from him. Apart from this help and from a few very valuable criticisms and corrections from Sir Percival, Professor PELLIOT, and some other friends, my translation work has been done too much alone, and for its faults, which must consequently be many, I am alone to blame.
With the Introduction it is different, and it would not have been worthy of publication at all but for the vigorous criticism and correction which it has undergone at the hands of the same friends . If on some points my own view has been pertinaciously held, many others have been greatly changed, enlarged, and made better by these friends. The Introduction nevertheless makes no pretence to be complete. For many things the student must still go to YULE or BENEDETTO. But in the first three sections it deals in some detail with a few selected subjects, namely the family of Marco Polo, and his house, and some facts of his life and travels, about which more certain information is now to be had than was in YULE's
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