where the history of this translation is given. In the year 1307, Thibault, Seigneur de Capoy, passing through Venice on his way to Constantinople, had here the honour to receive a copy of his travels from Marco Polo himself, “desirans,” as Thibault says, “que ce qu’il avoit veu fus sceu par l’univers monde, et pour l’onneur et reverence de tres excellent et puissant princ Monseigneur Charles fils du Roy de France et Comte de Valois, bailla et donna au dessus dit Seigneur de Cepoy la premiere copie de son dit livre.” A French MS. of 1300, is in the Royal Library of Paris. Other older French translations, which are probably copies only of this, are cited in “Montfaucon Biblioth. MSS. nova,” p. 895.
A manuscript extract from the travels, under the title: “De magnis mirabilibus mundi et de Tartaris”, cap. XXI, is found in a codex of the fourteenth century, in the Ambrosian library of Milan, bearing the title: “Imago Mundi pars II, seu chronica Fratris Jacobi ab Aquis (Giacomo d’Aqui), in Lombardia ord. Præd. usque ad annum 1296.”
Respecting the manuscripts of Marco Polo’s travels, see “Ricerche critico-biografiche sui testi di Marco Polo”, in Zurla’s work hereafter quoted, vol. i, p. 13, and in Purchas’s “Pilgrimes”.
The most remarkable editions of Marco Polo in both languages of the original, are the following—
Incipit prologus in libro domini Marci Pauli de Veneciis de consuetudinibus et condicionibus orientalium regionum. Rome or Venice, between 1484 and 1490 (but according to Brunet, 1490-1500); 4to.
