Chapter XVII: Prologue (8)

and in short developed from the knowledge so acquired the great invention of printing. Mr. Curzon goes on to say that Panfilo Castaldi was born in 1398, and died in 1490, and that he gives the story as he found it in an article written by Dr. Jacopo Facen, of Feltre, in a (Venetian?) newspaper called _Il Gondoliere_, No. 103, of 27th December, 1843.

In a later paper Mr. Curzon thus recurs to the subject:[22]

“Though none of the early block-books have dates affixed to them,
many of them are with reason supposed to be more ancient than any
books printed with moveable types. Their resemblance to Chinese
block-books is so exact, that they would almost seem to be copied
from the books commonly used in China. _The impressions are taken
off on one side of the paper only, and in binding, both the
Chinese, and ancient German, or Dutch block-books, the blank sides
of the pages are placed opposite each other_, and sometimes pasted
together.... The impressions are not taken off with printer’s ink,
but _with a brown paint or colour, of a much thinner description,
more in the nature of Indian ink, as we call it, which is used
in printing Chinese books_. Altogether the German and Oriental
block-books are so precisely alike, in almost every respect, that
... we must suppose that the process of printing then must have
been copied from ancient Chinese specimens, brought from that
country by some early travellers, whose names have not been handed
down to our times.”

The writer then refers to the tradition about _Guttemberg_ (so it is stated on this occasion, not Faust) having learned Castaldi’s art, etc., mentioning a circumstance which he supposes to indicate that Guttemberg had relations with Venice; and appears to assent to the probability of the story of the art having been founded on specimens brought home by Marco Polo.

This story was in recent years diligently propagated in Northern Italy, and resulted in the erection at Feltre of a public statue of Panfilo Castaldi, bearing this inscription (besides others of like tenor):—

“_To Panfilo Castaldi the illustrious Inventor of Movable Printing
Types, Italy renders this Tribute of Honour, too long deferred._”

In the first edition of this book I devoted a special note to the exposure of the worthlessness of the evidence for this story.[23] This note was, with the present Essay, translated and published at Venice by Comm. Berchet, but this challenge to the supporters of the patriotic romance, so far as I have heard, brought none of them into the lists in its defence.

But since Castaldi has got his statue from the printers of Lombardy, would it not be mere equity that the mariners of Spain should set up a statue at Huelva to the Pilot Alonzo Sanchez of that port, who, according to Spanish historians, after discovering the New World, died in the house of Columbus at Terceira, and left the crafty Genoese to appropriate his journals, and rob him of his fame?

Seriously; if anybody in Feltre cares for the real reputation of his native city, let him do his best to have that preposterous and discreditable fiction removed from the base of the statue. If Castaldi has deserved a statue on other and truer grounds let _him_ stand; if not, let him be burnt into honest lime! I imagine that the original story that attracted Mr. Curzon was more _jeu d’esprit_ than anything else; but that the author, finding what a stone he had set rolling, did not venture to retract.

[Sidenote: Frequent opportunities for such introduction in the age following Polo’s.]

88. Mr. Curzon’s own observations, which I have italicised about the resemblance of the two systems are, however, very striking, and seem clearly to indicate the derivation of the art from China. But I should suppose that in the tradition, if there ever was any genuine tradition of the kind at Feltre (a circumstance worthy of all doubt), the name of Marco Polo was introduced merely because it was so prominent a name in Eastern Travel. The fact has been generally overlooked and forgotten[24] that, for many years in the course of the 14th century, not only were missionaries of the Roman Church and Houses of the Franciscan Order established in the chief cities of China, but a regular trade was carried on overland between Italy and China, by way of Tana (or Azov), Astracan, Otrar and Kamul, insomuch that instructions for the Italian merchant following that route form the two first chapters in the Mercantile Handbook of Balducci Pegolotti (_circa_ 1340).[25] Many a traveller besides Marco Polo might therefore have brought home the block-books. And this is the less to be ascribed to him because he so curiously omits to speak of the art of printing, when his subject seems absolutely to challenge its description.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] “They draw nowadays the map of the world in a laughable manner, for
they draw the inhabited earth as a circle; but this is impossible,
both from what we see and from reason.” (_Meteorolog. Lib._ II.
cap. 5.) Cf. _Herodotus_, iv. 36.

[2] In Dante’s Cosmography, Jerusalem is the centre of our οἰκουμένη,
whilst the Mount of Purgatory occupies the middle of the Antipodal
hemisphere:—

“Come ciò sia, se’ l vuoi poter pensare,
Dentro raccolto immagina Sion
Con questo monte in su la terra stare,
Sì, ch’ambodue hann’un solo orrizon
E diversi emisperi”....
—_Purg._ IV. 67.

[3] The belief, with this latter ground of it, is alluded to in curious
verses by Jacopo Alighieri, Dante’s son:—

“_E molti gran Profeti_
_Filosofi e Poeti_
Fanno il colco dell’Emme
Dov’è Gerusalemme;
_Se le loro scritture_
_Hanno vere figure:_
_E per la Santa fede_
_Cristiana ancor si vede_
_Che’ l’ suo principio Cristo_
Nel suo mezzo _conquisto_
_Per cui prese morte_
_E vi pose la sorte_.”
—(_Rime Antiche Toscane_, III. 9.)

Though the general meaning of the second couplet is obvious,
the expression _il colco dell’Emme_, “the couch of the M,” is
puzzling. The best solution that occurs to me is this: In looking
at the world map of Marino Sanudo, noticed on p. _133_, as engraved
by Bongars in the _Gesta Dei per Francos_, you find geometrical
lines laid down, connecting the N.E., N.W., S.E., and S.W. points,
and thus forming a square inscribed in the circular disk of the
Earth, with its diagonals passing through the Central Zion. The eye
easily discerns in these a great M inscribed in the circle, with
its middle angular point at Jerusalem. Gervasius of Tilbury (with
some confusion in his mind between tropic and equinoxial, like that
which Pliny makes in speaking of the Indian Mons Malleus) says that
“some are of opinion that the Centre is in the place where the Lord
spoke to the woman of Samaria at the well, for there, at the summer
solstice, the noonday sun descends perpendicularly into the water
of the well, casting no shadow; a thing which the philosophers say
occurs at Syene”! (_Otia Imperialia_, by Liebrecht, p. 1.)

[4] This circumstance does not, however, show in the Vulgate.

[5]

“Veggiamo in prima in general la terra
Come risiede e come il mar la serra.

Un T dentro ad un O mostra il disegno
Come in tre parti fu diviso il Mondo,
E la superiore è il maggior regno
Che quasi piglia la metà del tondo.
ASIA chiamata: il gambo ritto è segno
Che parte il terzo nome dal secondo
AFFRICA dico da EUROPA: il mare
Mediterran tra esse in mezzo appare.”
—_La Sfera_, di F. Leonardo di Stagio Dati,
Lib. iii. st. 11.

[6] _De Civ. Dei_, xvi. 17, quoted by _Peschel_, 92.

[7] _Opus Majus_, Venice ed. pp. 142, _seqq._

[8] _Peschel_, p. 195. This had escaped me.

[9] By the Rev. W. L. Bevan, M.A., and the Rev. H. W. Phillott, M.A.
In Asia, they point out, the only name showing any recognition of
modern knowledge is Samarcand.

[10] His work, _Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis_, intended to
stimulate a new Crusade, has three capital maps, besides that of
the World, one of which, translated, but otherwise in facsimile, is
given at p. 18 of this volume. But besides these maps, he gives,
in a tabular form of parallel columns, the reigning sovereigns in
Europe and Asia connected with his historical retrospect, just on
the plan presented in Sir Harris Nicolas’s Chronology of History.

[11] I do not see that al-Birúni deserves the credit in this respect
assigned to him by Professor Peschel, so far as one can judge
from the data given by Sprenger (_Peschel_, p. 128; _Post und
Reise-Routen_, 81–82.)

[12] For example, _Delli_, which Polo does not name; _Diogil_ (Deogír);
on the Coromandel coast _Setemelti_, which I take to be a clerical
error for _Sette-Templi_, the Seven Pagodas; round the Gulf of
Cambay we have _Cambetum_ (Kambayat), _Cocintaya_ (Kokan-Tana, see
vol. ii. p. 396), _Goga, Baroche, Neruala_ (Anharwala), and to the
north _Moltan_. Below Multan are _Hocibelch_ and _Bargelidoa_, two
puzzles. The former is, I think, _Uch-baligh_, showing that part of
the information was from Perso-Mongol sources.

[13] I see it stated by competent authority that _Romman_ is often
applied to any prose composition in a Romance language.

In or about 1426, Prince Pedro of Portugal, the elder brother of
the illustrious Prince Henry, being on a visit to Venice, was
presented by the Signory with a copy of Marco Polo’s book, together
with a map already alluded to. (_Major’s P. Henry_, pp. 61, 62.)

[14] This is partly due also to Fra Mauro’s reversion to the fancy of
the circular disk limiting the inhabited portion of the earth.

[15] An early graphic instance of this is Ruysch’s famous map
(1508). The following extract of a work printed as late as 1533
is an example of the like confusion in verbal description: “The
Territories which are beyond the limits of Ptolemy’s Tables have
not yet been described on certain authority. Behind the Sinae and
the Seres, and beyond 180° of East Longitude, many countries were
discovered by one [_quendam_] Marco Polo a Venetian and others,
and the sea-coasts of those countries have now recently again been
explored by Columbus the Genoese and Amerigo Vespucci in navigating
the Western Ocean.... To this part (of Asia) belong the territory
called that of the _Bachalaos_ [or Codfish, Newfoundland],
_Florida_, _the Desert of Lop_, _Tangut_, _Cathay_, the realm of
_Mexico_ (wherein is the vast city of _Temistitan_, built in the
middle of a great lake, but which the older travellers styled
QUINSAY), besides _Paria_, _Uraba_, and the countries of the
_Canibals_.” (_Joannis Schoneri Carolostadtii Opusculum Geogr._,
quoted by Humboldt, _Examen_, V. 171, 172.)

[16] In Robert Parke’s Dedication of his Translation of Mendoza’s,
London, 1st of January, 1589, he identifies China and Japan with
the regions of which _Paulus Venetus_ and _Sir John Mandeuill_
“wrote long agoe.”—_MS. Note by Yule_.

[17] “_Totius Europae et Asiae Tabula Geographica, Auctore Thoma D.
Aucupario. Edita Argentorati_, MDXXII.” Copied in Witsen.

[18] This strange association of _Balor_ (_i.e._, Bolor, that name of
so many odd vicissitudes, see pp. 178–179 _infra_) with the shut-up
Israelites must be traced to a passage which Athanasius Kircher
quotes from _R. Abraham Pizol_ (qu. Peritsol?): “_Regnum_, inquit,
Belor _magnum et excelsum nimis, juxta omnes illos qui scripserunt
Historicos_. Sunt in eo Judaei _plurimi inclusi, et illud in latere
Orientali et Boreali_,” etc. (_China Illustrata_, p. 49.)

[19] Vol. ii. p. 1.

[20] _A short Account of Libraries of Italy_, by the Hon. R. Curzon
(the late Lord de la Zouche); in _Bibliog. and Hist. Miscellanies;
Philobiblon Society_, vol. i, 1854, pp. 6. _seqq._

[21] P. del Natali was Bishop of Equilio, a city of the Venetian
Lagoons, in the latter part of the 14th century. (See _Ughelli,
Italia Sacra_, X. 87.) There is no ground whatever for connecting
him with these inventions. The story of the glass types appears
to rest entirely and solely on one obscure passage of Sansovino,
who says that under the Doge Marco Corner (1365–1367): “_certe
Natale Veneto lasciò un libro della materie delle forme da giustar
intorno alle lettere, ed il modo di formarle di vetro_.” There is
absolutely nothing more. Some kind of stencilling seems indicated.

[22] _History of Printing in China and Europe_, in _Philobiblon_, vol.
vi. p. 23.

[23] See _Appendix L_. in First Edition.

[24] Ramusio himself appears to have been entirely unconscious of it,
_vide supra_, p. 3.

[25] This subject has been fully treated in _Cathay and the Way
Thither_.

XIV. EXPLANATIONS REGARDING THE BASIS ADOPTED FOR THE
PRESENT TRANSLATION.

89. It remains to say a few words regarding the basis adopted for our English version of the Traveller’s record.

[Sidenote: Text followed by Marsden and by Pauthier.]

Ramusio’s recension was that which Marsden selected for translation. But at the date of his most meritorious publication nothing was known of the real literary history of Polo’s Book, and no one was aware of the peculiar value and originality of the French manuscript texts, nor had Marsden seen any of them. A translation from one of those texts is a translation at first hand; a translation from Ramusio’s Italian is, as far as I can judge, the translation of a translated compilation from two or more translations, and therefore, whatever be the merits of its matter, inevitably carries us far away from the spirit and style of the original narrator. M. Pauthier, I think, did well in adopting for the text of his edition the MSS. which I have classed as of the second Type, the more as there had hitherto been no publication from those texts. But editing a text in the original language, and translating, are tasks substantially different in their demands.

[Sidenote: Eclectic formation of the English Text of this Translation.]

90. It will be clear from what has been said in the preceding pages that I should not regard as a fair or full representation of Polo’s Work, a version on which the Geographic Text did not exercise a material influence. But to adopt that Text, with all its awkwardnesses and tautologies, as the absolute subject of translation, would have been a mistake. What I have done has been, in the first instance, to translate from Pauthier’s Text. The process of abridgment in this text, however it came about, has been on the whole judiciously executed, getting rid of the intolerable prolixities of manner which belong to many parts of the Original Dictation, but _as a general rule_ preserving the matter. Having translated this,—not always from the Text adopted by Pauthier himself, but with the exercise of my own judgment on the various readings which that Editor lays before us,—I then compared the translation with the Geographic Text, and transferred from the latter not only all items of real substance that had been omitted, but also all expressions of special interest and character, and occasionally a greater fulness of phraseology where condensation in Pauthier’s text seemed to have been carried too far. And finally I introduced _between brackets_ everything peculiar to Ramusio’s version that seemed to me to have a just claim to be reckoned authentic, and that could be so introduced without harshness or mutilation. Many passages from the same source which were of interest in themselves, but failed to meet one or other of these conditions, have been given in the notes.[1]

[Sidenote: Mode of rendering proper names.]

91. As regards the reading of proper names and foreign words, in which there is so much variation in the different MSS. and editions, I have done my best to select what seemed to be the true reading from the G. T. and Pauthier’s three MSS., only in some rare instances transgressing this limit.

Where the MSS. in the repetition of a name afforded a choice of forms, I have selected that which came nearest the real name when known. Thus the G. T. affords _Baldasciain, Badascian, Badasciam, Badausiam, Balasian_. I adopt BADASCIAN, or in English spelling BADASHAN, because it is closest to the real name _Badakhshan_. Another place appears as COBINAN, _Cabanat, Cobian_. I adopt the first because it is the truest expression of the real name _Koh-benán_. In chapters 23, 24 of Book I., we have in the G. T. _Asisim, Asciscin, Asescin_, and in Pauthier’s MSS. _Hasisins, Harsisins_, etc. I adopt ASCISCIN, or in English spelling ASHISHIN, for the same reason as before. So with _Creman, Crerman, Crermain_, QUERMAN, Anglicè KERMAN; Cormos, HORMOS, and many more.[2]

In two or three cases I have adopted a reading which I cannot show _literatim_ in any authority, but because such a form appears to be the just resultant from the variety of readings which are presented; as in surveying one takes the mean of a number of observations when no one can claim an absolute preference.

Polo’s proper names, even in the French Texts, are _in the main_ formed on an Italian fashion of spelling.[3] I see no object in preserving such spelling in an English book, so after selecting the best reading of the name I express it in English spelling, printing _Badashan, Pashai, Kerman_, instead of _Badascian, Pasciai, Querman_, and so on.

And when a little trouble has been taken to ascertain the true form and force of Polo’s spelling of Oriental names and technical expressions, it will be found that they are in the main as accurate as Italian lips and orthography will admit, and not justly liable either to those disparaging epithets[4] or to those exegetical distortions which have been too often applied to them. Thus, for example, _Cocacin, Ghel_ or _Ghelan, Tonocain, Cobinan, Ondanique, Barguerlac, Argon, Sensin, Quescican, Toscaol, Bularguci, Zardandan, Anin, Caugigu, Coloman, Gauenispola, Mutfili, Avarian, Choiach_, are not, it will be seen, the ignorant blunderings which the interpretations affixed by some commentators would imply them to be, but are, on the contrary, all but perfectly accurate utterances of the names and words intended.

The _-tchéou_ (of French writers), _-choo_, _-chow_, or _-chau_[5] of English writers, which so frequently forms the terminal part in the names of Chinese cities, is almost invariably rendered by Polo as _-giu_. This has frequently in the MSS., and constantly in the printed editions, been converted into _-gui_, and thence into _-guy_. This is on the whole the most constant canon of Polo’s geographical orthography, and holds in _Caagiu_ (Ho-chau), _Singiu_ (Sining-chau), _Cui-giu_ (Kwei-chau), _Sin-giu_ (T’sining-chau), _Pi-giu_ (Pei-chau), _Coigangiu_ (Hwaingan-chau), _Si-giu_ (Si-chau), _Ti-giu_ (Tai-chau), _Tin-giu_ (Tung-chau), _Yan-giu_ (Yang-chau), _Sin-giu_ (Chin-chau), _Cai-giu_ (Kwa-chau), _Chinghi-giu_ (Chang-chau), _Su-giu_ (Su-chau), _Vu-giu_ (Wu-chau), and perhaps a few more. In one or two instances only (as _Sinda-ciu_, _Caiciu_) he has _-ciu_ instead of _-giu_.

The chapter-headings I have generally taken from Pauthier’s Text, but they are no essential part of the original work, and they have been slightly modified or enlarged where it seemed desirable.

• • • • •

“=Behold! I see the Haven nigh at Hand,
To which I meane my wearie Course to bend;
Vere the maine Shete, and beare up with the Land,
The which afore is fayrly to be kend,
And seemeth safe from Storms that may offend.=
* * * * *
=There eke my Feeble Barke a while may stay,
Till mery Wynd and Weather call her thence away.=”
—THE FAERIE QUEENE, I. xii. 1.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] This “eclectic formation of the English text,” as I have called it
for brevity in the marginal rubric, has been disapproved by Mr. de
Khanikoff, a critic worthy of high respect. But I must repeat that
the duties of a translator, and of the Editor of an original text,
at least where the various recensions bear so peculiar a relation
to each other as in this case, are essentially different; and that,
on reconsidering the matter after an interval of four or five
years, the plan which I have adopted, whatever be the faults of
execution, still commends itself to me as the only appropriate one.

Let Mr. de Khanikoff consider what course he would adopt if he
were about to publish Marco Polo in Russian. I feel certain that
with whatever theory he might set out, before his task should be
concluded he would have arrived practically at the same system that
I have adopted.

[2] In Polo’s diction C frequently represents H., _e.g._, _Cormos_ =
Hormuz; _Camadi_ probably = Hamadi; _Caagiu_ probably = Hochau;
_Cacianfu_ = Hochangfu, and so on. This is perhaps attributable to
Rusticiano’s Tuscan ear. A true Pisan will absolutely contort his
features in the intensity of his efforts to aspirate sufficiently
the letter C. Filippo Villani, speaking of the famous Aguto (Sir
J. Hawkwood), says his name in English was _Kauchouvole_. (_Murat.
Script._ xiv. 746.)

[3] In the Venetian dialect _ch_ and _j_ are often sounded as in
English, not as in Italian. Some traces of such pronunciation I
think there are, as in _Coja, Carajan_, and in the Chinese name
_Vanchu_ (occurring only in Ramusio, _supra_, p. _99_). But the
scribe of the original work being a Tuscan, the spelling is in
the main Tuscan. The sound of the _Qu_ is, however, French, as in
_Quescican, Quinsai_, except perhaps in the case of _Quenianfu_,
for a reason given in vol. ii. p. 29.

[4] For example, that enthusiastic student of mediæval Geography,
Joachim Lelewel, speaks of Polo’s “gibberish” (_le baragouinage du
Venitien_) with special reference to such names as _Zayton_ and
_Kinsay_, whilst we now know that these names were in universal
use by all foreigners in China, and no more deserve to be called
gibberish than _Bocca-Tigris_, _Leghorn_, _Ratisbon_, or _Buda_.

[5] I am quite sensible of the diffidence with which any outsider
should touch any question of Chinese language or orthography. A
Chinese scholar and missionary (Mr. Moule) objects to my spelling
_chau_, whilst he, I see, uses _chow_. I imagine we mean the same
sound, according to the spelling which I try to use throughout the
book. Dr. C. Douglas, another missionary scholar, writes _chau_.

SKETCH SHOWING CHIEF MONARCHIES OF ASIA IN LATTER PART OF 13ᵗʰ
CENTURY]

THE
BOOK OF MARCO POLO.