MARCO POLO VENETIANO. DELLE MERAVIGLIE DEL MONDO PER LUI VEDUTE. DEL COSTUME DI VARII PAESI, & DELLO STRANIO VIVER DI QUELLI. DE LA DESCRITTIONE DE DIVERSI ANIMALI. DEL TROVAR DELL'ORO & DEL'ARGENTO. DELLE PIERRE PRECIOSE. COSA NON MENO UTILE, CHE BELLA.
Polo, Marco:
Price: 16500.00 USD
In Venetia, & poi in Trevigi per Angelo Righettini, 1267 [i.e. 1627]., 128pp. including full-page woodcut illustration on p.[4]. 18th-century Spanish calf, spine gilt, gilt morocco labels. Calf a bit rubbed along spine. Faint old institutional ink stamp on titlepage and final page of text. A very neat and clean copy. Very good. In a half morocco box. A rare early 17th-century Italian edition of Marco Polo's description of his journey across Asia in the late 13th century, one of the most significant and resonant travel accounts in the history of human endeavor, and a key text in the perception in Europe of the East during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This edition, printed by Righettini in Trevi in 1627, is recorded in a single U.S. location. The work was a popular title for several generations of this firm, which also published editions in the same octavo format (and often with the same pagination) in 1590, 1640, 1657, 1665, and 1672. According to Yule, "these various editions are reprints of the [first published Italian-language] text of 1496." Born into a prominent Venetian trading family, Marco Polo (1254-1324) departed with his father and uncle toward the East in 1271, travelling through Syria, Jerusalem, Turkey, Persia, and India, to China and the court of Kublai Khan. Marco Polo became a favorite of the Khan and travelled throughout China over the next fifteen years as an emissary of the Mongol emperor. Polo returned to Venice in 1295, only to be briefly imprisoned in Genoa as a prisoner of war a few years later. During this imprisonment, in 1298, he dictated his adventures to Rusticiano (also called Rustichello) of Pisa, and the text became known as IL MILIONE. (The exact meaning of this term in Polo's time is still unclear, although it may refer to the popular belief regarding the traveller's great riches.) The original work was written in Franco-Italic, and was quickly translated into Latin and other languages by court clerks. Over one hundred extant manuscript versions, translations, and adaptations are recorded. First printed in a German language edition in Nuremberg in 1477, a Latin translation followed circa 1485 (Christopher Columbus possessed a copy of this Latin edition). The immense popularity of Polo's account is reflected in the numerous editions which followed printed in German, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, French, English, and Dutch. Polo's account includes vivid descriptions of cities, waterways, architectural monuments, industries, natural resources, plants, and animals as well as reports on customs and traditions. In addition to Cathay and Mangi (the Mongol name for South China), Polo writes of the native societies he visited in Tibet and southwestern China. Donald F. Lach, in his magisterial study, ASIA IN THE MAKING OF EUROPE, writes that "other Europeans lived and worked in China during the thirteenth century, but Marco Polo was the only one, so far as is known, to travel and work there and to write an account of his experiences. For the first time in history Europe possessed a detailed narrative about China and its neighbors based upon more than hearsay and speculation...Marco Polo provided Europe with the most comprehensive and authoritative account of the East produced before 1550." A rare early 17th-century Italian edition of Marco Polo's travels, one of the most celebrated travel accounts of all time. OCLC records a single location at Gordon College in Massachusetts, no copies in RLIN. Henry Yule, ed. (revised by Henri Cordier), THE BOOK OF SER MARCO POLO (London, 1921), Vol. II, p.562-3, no.26-13 (this ed); Vol. I, pp.90-104; Vol. II, Appendix H. HOWGEGO P124-P126. Lach, ASIA IN THE MAKING OF EUROPE I, Book 1, pp.34-38. PRINTING AND TH.
