states, as we have seen, that immediately after the first commission of
Polo’s narrative to writing (in Latin as he imagined), many copies of
it were made, it was translated into the vulgar tongue, and in a few
months all Italy was full of it.
The few facts that we can collect do not justify this view of the
rapid and diffused renown of the Traveller and his Book. The number
of MSS. of the latter dating from the 14th century is no doubt
considerable, but a large proportion of these are of Pipino’s condensed
Latin Translation, which was not put forth, if we can trust Ramusio,
till 1320, and certainly not much earlier. The whole number of MSS.
in various languages that we have been able to register, amounts to
about eighty. I find it difficult to obtain statistical data as to the
comparative number of copies of different works existing in manuscript.
With Dante’s great Poem, of which there are reckoned close upon 500
MSS.,[1] comparison would be inappropriate. But of the Travels of Friar
Odoric, a poor work indeed beside Marco Polo’s, I reckoned thirty-nine
MSS., and could now add at least three more to the list. [I described
seventy-three in my edition of _Odoric_.—H. C.] Also I find that of
the nearly contemporary work of Brunetto Latini, the _Tresor_, a sort
of condensed Encyclopædia of knowledge, but a work which one would
scarcely have expected to approach the popularity of Polo’s Book, the
Editor enumerates some fifty MSS. And from the great frequency with
which one encounters in Catalogues both MSS. and early printed editions
of Sir John Maundevile, I should suppose that the lying wonders of
our English Knight had a far greater popularity and more extensive
diffusion than the veracious and more sober marvels of Polo.[2] To
Southern Italy Polo’s popularity certainly does not seem at any time to
have extended. I cannot learn that any MS. of his Book exists in any
Library of the late Kingdom of Naples or in Sicily.[3]
Dante, who lived for twenty-three years after Marco’s work was
written, and who touches so many things in the seen and unseen Worlds,
never alludes to Polo, nor I think to anything that can be connected
with his Book. I believe that no mention of _Cathay_ occurs in the
_Divina Commedia_. That distant region is indeed mentioned more than
once in the poems of a humbler contemporary, Francesco da Barberino,
but there is nothing in his allusions besides this name to suggest any
knowledge of Polo’s work.[4]
Neither can I discover any trace of Polo or his work in that of his
contemporary and countryman, Marino Sanudo the Elder, though this
worthy is well acquainted with the somewhat later work of Hayton, and
many of the subjects which he touches in his own book would seem to
challenge a reference to Marco’s labours.
[Sidenote: Contemporary references to Polo.]