Ramusian additions represents the traveller to have visited the
Palace of the Chinese Kings at Kinsay, which he conceives to be
inconsistent with Marco’s position as an official of the Mongol
Government. (See vol. ii. p. 208.)
If we could conceive the Ramusian additions to have been originally
notes written by old Maffeo Polo on his nephew’s book, this
hypothesis would remove almost all difficulty.
One passage in Ramusio seems to bear a reference to the date at
which these interpolated notes were amalgamated with the original.
In the chapter on Samarkand (i. p. 191) the conversion of the
Prince Chagatai is said in the old texts to have occurred “not a
great while ago” (_il ne a encore grament de tens_). But in Ramusio
the supposed event is fixed at “one hundred and twenty-five years
since.” This number could not have been uttered with reference to
1298, the year of the dictation at Genoa, nor to any year of Polo’s
own life. Hence it is probable that the original note contained a
date or definite term which was altered by the compiler to suit the
date of his own compilation, some time in the 14th century.
[18] In the first edition of Ramusio the preface contained the
following passage, which is omitted from the succeeding editions;
but as even the first edition was issued after Ramusio’s own death,
I do not see that any stress can be laid on this:
“A copy of the Book of Marco Polo, as it was originally written
in Latin, marvellously old, and perhaps directly copied from the
original as it came from M. Marco’s own hand, has been often
consulted by me and compared with that which we now publish, having
been lent me by a nobleman of this city, belonging to the Ca’
Ghisi.”
[19] For a moment I thought I had been lucky enough to light on a part
of the missing original of Ramusio in the Barberini Library at
Rome. A fragment of a Venetian version in that library (No. 56 in
our list of MSS.) bore on the fly-leaf the title “_Alcuni primi
capi del Libro di S. Marco Polo, copiati dall esemplare manoscritto
di PAOLO RANNUSIO._” But it proved to be of no importance. One
brief passage of those which have been thought peculiar to Ramusio,
viz., the reference to the Martyrdom of St. Blaize at Sebaste (see
p. 43 of this volume), is found also in the Geographic Latin.
It was pointed out by Lazari, that another passage (vol. i. p. 60)
of those otherwise peculiar to Ramusio, is found in a somewhat
abridged Latin version in a MS. which belonged to the late eminent
antiquary Emanuel Cicogna. (See List in Appendix F, No. 35.)
This fact induced me when at Venice in 1870 to examine the MS.
throughout, and, though I could give little time to it, the result
was very curious.
I find that this MS. contains, not one only, but at least _seven_
of the passages otherwise peculiar to Ramusio, and must have been
one of the elements that went to the formation of his text. Yet of
his more important interpolations, such as the chapter on Ahmad’s
oppressions and the additional matter on the City of Kinsay, there
is no indication. The seven passages alluded to are as follows; the
words corresponding to Ramusian peculiarities are in italics, the
references are to my own volumes.