IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
1
i
. I o 5 . A BEAUTIFUL BRIDGE & THE CITY OF GIOGIU MARCO POLO
R R wall of flags of marble and of pillars artificially made so as I shall tell you. And in the ascent it is something wider than at the end of the ascent; but then, when one is gone up, it is found equal throughout the length as if drawn by line. And at the head of the ascent of the bridge is a very large pillar and high, set upon a tortoise of marble. Near the foot of the pillar is a great lion. And there is fixed at the head of the bridge a marble pillar, and FB below the pillar is a marble lion and above the pillar is another one, so that the pillar is on the back of the lion, which lions are very beautiful and large and well made;' R R and a pace and a half2 from this pillar toward the ascent of the bridge is another very FB VA beautiful one made just the same as the first, no more nor less, with two marble lions.
L And on either side of the bridge are many small pillars, and under each pillar as if for its
base is a lion, and likewise above its head another lion, and from the one pillar to the other R it is closed in with a flag of grey marble all worked with diferent sculptures and mortised
into the columns at the side, through the length of the bridge to the end, so that the people
L who cross may not be able to fall into the water; and so it goes from length to length FB R on one side and on other, • all the pillars are distant one from the other by a pace and a half, R so that it is quite a beautiful thing to see. And on the descent from the bridge it is as on LT the ascent.. And so there are altogether on the said bridge six hundred pillars with twelve hundred lions on one side and the other of the bridge, and all these are of very fine marble. FB Now we have told you of this beautiful bridge, and we will tell you of other new things.
I06 • ERE HE TELLS OF THE GREAT CITY OF GIOGIU. And when one sets out from
VB this bridge aforesaid and he is gone thirty miles by the sunsetting,
LT FB VA always finding beautiful trees, villages, and inns for food. & palaces and
FB FB R VB FB beautiful vineyards and beautiful gardens and beautiful •very fruitful • cultivated fields and VA beautiful springs, then at the end of thirty miles he finds a city which is called Giogiu z vB z very great and beautiful. There are many abbeys of idolaters priests and monks •in it, LT VB • and the people of that country are all idolaters. • And however they live by trade and by crafts, VB L as for the most part do all other people. •For many cloths of silk and of gold and beautiful R V V VB very fine sendals are made there. And there are very many fine inns or hostels in our VB manner, where the wayfarers lodge, because of the multitude of merchants & strangers who come there. And when one is departed [48a] from this town and gone one mile then one finds two roads which the one goes to sunsetting and the other to sirocco. R That of the sunsetting is the road by which one goes through the province of Catai, and TA that of the sirocco goes toward the great sea to the great province of Mangi . And you
1 V says that the top lion was larger.—desopra nesono vnaltro plu Brando
2 FA, FB,TA, LT, P, L: "one pace" ; TA3, Z omit; V, R: "one pace and a half".
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