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Introduction
Introduction
To answer the question “Did Marco Polo go to China?” the most important primary source we must consult is his book describing his travels to Asia and his experiences in China. Notably, the book was not written by Marco Polo himself but was dictated by Marco Polo and written down by Rustichello da Pisa when they are together in the prison in Genoa.[1] Unfortunately, the original manuscript of Rustichello was lost, and among the surviving copies and editions, a manuscript in Franco-Italian (known as the “F text”) is often regarded as the closest one to the original manuscript.[1] The title of this text is “Le Devisement du monde,” which is translated to be “The Description of the World” in English. Today, we have a large number of different versions of “Le Devisement du monde” in different languages copied and translated from each other. However, the rare dictating process to compose the book, the loss of the original manuscript, the various versions, and the complex translation and copy relations have brought doubts on credibility and originality. For example, Frances Wood claims that perhaps the “ghostwriter” Rustichello altered the dictation of Marco Polo, and the lack of primary evidence has turned “Did Marco Polo go to China?” into “a question of fate.”[2] Thus, we should first discuss the problems with the editions before looking at specific content within any specific edition. This page will introduce the systems of different editions, analyze detailed comparisons between specific editions, and eventually offer a significant finding that leads us to the final answer to our research question.
Different Versions of the Book
Different Versions of the Book
While western people were astonished and frightened by the western expansions of the enormous Mongol Empire and sought to connect with the Mongols, Marco Polo’s book, as the first foreign comprehensive description of far east China, caught the trend and became widely read, copied, and translated by the Europeans.[3] However, contemporary people didn’t believe the account initially and only regarded the book as a compilation of marvels.[3] But as more merchants and clerics went to China and returned, Marco Polo’s account became largely verified. People started to believe the content of the book, and even Columbus brought a Latin edition of the book with him on sails (see the picture on the left). Thus, the translations and transcriptions went on. Until now, there are about 150 different editions worldwide.
To discuss these editions more conveniently, scholars categorize these 150 versions into two groups and labeled them A and B.[4] The remaining version thought to be the closest to the original manuscript is the “F text”—a manuscript in Franco-Italian—and all manuscripts in group A can trace back to the F text. Another influential version in group A is the “P text”—a Latin translation by the Dominican brother Francesco Pipino, which served as the primary text for later translations into other European languages, such as “Czech, Irish, and Venetian.”[5] Versions in Group B include content not found in group A. Among them, the most astonishing one is the “Z text,” which is a Latin text not discovered until the 20th century. The Z text includes 2/3 of the content of the F text but 200 more paragraphs with detailed and delicate descriptions, which leads to a hypothesis that manuscripts in Group B are based on another original manuscript revised by Marco Polo himself after he was released.[6] Another influential version in Group B is the “R text” in Italian by Giovani Battista Ramusio, who incorporated Z text, a lost Latin text,[7] and some legendaries to compose the first critical edition of Marco Polo’s book.
Besides these versions, Henry Yule composed “The book of ser Marco Polo,” an English edition with significant academic value, by adopting the “FG text” as the primary texts and integrated a list of other versions to revise and improve the edition.[8] Besides the editions, an important source is Paul Pelliot’s Notes On Marco Polo, which provides detailed annotations of the names of objects in various editions. Prominent scholar Zhijiu Yang considered it as the most comprehensive and authoritative work.[9]
After introducing the most representative editions, we will look at some representative reasons causing the differences between the editions with detailed comparisons. These comparisons might provide some new insights for our research question.
Comparisons between Specific Editions
Comparisons between Specific Editions
Before the popularization of the printing technology, the books were copied manually. Such a high cost made copies or translations of the book aim at specific groups of elites, so the content was altered to fit certain favors of the groups. A great example is Pipino’s P text, which became a tool of demonstrating the power of Christianity to Christians. While I cannot understand Latin, and “no proper scholarly edition” exists, here I adopt some comparisons from secondary sources. According to Philippe Menard, Pipino made considerable abridgments and altered the writing style in order to Christianize the text.[10] Besides, John Larner points out that Pipino added slanderous descriptions to the Saracens (Muslims) whenever they appear in the text, and he often emphasized religious contents.[11]
Besides content influenced by elites, editors made errors when they encountered incomprehensible content during the translation process—editors often researched relevant information themselves to revise the texts, or they add content base on their knowledge. A 19th-century Italian scholar Baldelli Boni noticed the confusing differences in the earliest surviving Italian manuscripts translated from the French ones. For example, “tres noble cite” (the noblest city—Xiangyang) was translated into “tre nobile citta” (three cities), and “bue” (mud) became “bulls.”[12]
Moreover, editors usually altered the tone or content to make the editions more interesting and popular. One famous example is Ramusio’s Italian text. He added a scene not found in other manuscripts in the prologue describing the three Polos’ return to Venice—their relatives failed to recognize the three Polos in dilapidated Tatar-robes.[13] Yule included this part of the R text in the introduction of his edition, but he also noted that “his essay abounds in what we now know to be errors of details.”[14] Frances Wood pointed out that “[i]t was perhaps the mortality rate [of the escorting mission] that led Ramusio to describe the Polos’ return to Venice clad in rags and quite without language.”[15] Apart from this scene, the R text includes other interesting content that is found nowhere else, and the most notable one is the marriage between Chingiz Khan and Prester John’s daughter—“Chingiz Khan espoused [Prester John]’s daughter” after the battle.[16] According to Frances Wood, this marriage is impossible since Prester John and her daughter are fabled figures, and Chingiz wives should be well known and recorded. Besides, in the relevant chapters, the R text doesn't mention the different beliefs of Astrologers[16] and depicts the whole army watching the astrological rite, while Yule’s edition depicts that Chingiz watched it alone and emphasizes that Christian astrologers won Chingiz’s faith over the Saracens.[17]
A Significant Accordance in Difference Editions
A Significant Accordance in Difference Editions
While these manuscripts are largely different from each other, they are surprisingly accordant in one aspect—Marco Polo’s description of salt. Comparing the English translations of the F text and the R text, we can find that the pieces of descriptions of salt in different cities are almost the same, including 1) usage: Tibetans had no paper money and used salt as their money; 2) quantity: large quantities of salt were produced in Cianglu, Coigangiu, and Cingiu; 3) size: the salt was molded to blocks of half-pound; 4) value: 80 blocks of salt worth a saggio of pure gold; 5) production process: Boiling salty water.[18] This rare accordance in several different paragraphs might suggest the credibility and the uniqueness of this part of the account. And deeper research in this part brings us to a concrete demonstration of Marco Polo’s presence in China.
Marco Polo’s account of salt was used in the latest scholarly argument about "Marco Polo has been to China." In his book Marco Polo Was in China: New Evidence from Currencies, Salts, and Revenues, Hans Ulrich Vogel made a detailed analysis of Marco’s account of salt through integrating a great number of editions and various Chinese historical sources. Vogel’s research confirmed that Marco Polo's description of salt is accordant in different versions, including the most prominent ones: the F text, the P text, the R text, and so on.[19] Besides, Vogel compared the descriptions with the Chinese sources about salt production and salt currencies in Tibet and Yunnan—Paul Pelliot notes that Caragian was no doubt the Mongol name for what Chinese called Yunnan.[20] Vogel found that Marco Polo’s account of the weight of salt blocks,[21] the prices of salt,[21] and salt currencies[21] indeed fits the Chinese sources, though not perfectly, properly. For example, 《景泰雲南圖經志書校注》records that salt is “交易用鹽 (used for trade), 土人貿遷有無, 惟以鹽塊 (salt lump) 行使”[22], which corresponds to the tradition of using salt as the currency. In addition to these comparisons, Vogels affirmed that Marco Polo was the “only non-Chinese author” mentioning the “circulation of salt as money in this region [prior to the 19th and the 20th century],”[23] and No other authors “reported on Chinese salt production with such details”[23]
With the information provided by Vogel's research, the accordance of the different texts seems reasonable. While the western world was lack of knowledge or information of the salt system in China in the medieval ages, no sources can be incorporated by the editors to alter Marco Polo’s description, and his account was thus preserved in these editions. Besides, Marco Polo could not compose the most detailed contemporary account about salt without physically being in China and witnessing these things himself. Thus, this part of the account not only demonstrates his presence in China but also resolves the controversy on if Marco Polo had been to Western China.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Marco Polo's book “The Description of the World” was continuously translated and modified after its publication, and the content of the book was altered by intentional revisions and careless mistakes during this process. Until now, this process has created about 150 editions with more-or-less differences. While the loss of Rustichello’s manuscript and those contradicting details and discordances in the multiple versions greatly hindered scholars from reaching the primary source of Marco Polo's journey, an abnormal similarity of the description about salt in Tibet and Yunnan leads us to a huge breakthrough. The accordance between Marco Polo’s account and later Chinese historical sources, together with the lack of foreign reports on China's salt industry, indicates that Marco Polo might be the first non-Chinese author to provide a detailed and accurate description of the salt industry and salt currencies in China. And since this extent of information cannot be obtained from any other sources, Marco Polo must have been to China and witnessed these things himself. Therefore, “Did Marco Polo go to China ?” is no longer “a question of fate”—we can now answer the question: “Yes, he did.”
Footnotes
Footnotes
[1] Kinoshita, Sharon, xiv.
[2] Marco Polo: The China Mystery Revealed, Episode 3.
[3] Wang Xin (王欣), 362-363.
[4] Kellogg, Patricia B., (2008).
[5] Wang Xin (王欣), 373.
[6] Larner, John, 53.
[7] Reichert, Folker E., 156.
[8] Yule, Henry, foreword.
[9] Yang Zhijiu (杨志玖), 44.
[10]Menard, Phillipe, 412.
[11] Larner, John, 104.
[12] Wood, Frances, 49.
[13] Wright, Thomas, 11.
[14] Yule, Henry, 2-4.
[15] Wood, Frances, 126.
[16] Wright, Thomas, 83.
[17] Yule, Henry, 242.
[18] 1. Tibet (Tibetans didn't have paper money and used salt as money), Kinoshita, 101, and Wright, 11.
2. Gaindu (They molded salt to be half-pound blocks, and 80 blocks=a saggio of pure gold), Kinoshita, 103, and Wright, 174.
3. Caraian (They made salt, and the king derived great profits), Kinoshita, 104, and Wright, 176.
4. Cianglu (Description of salt production: pouring water over a mound on a salty earth, boiling water, and manufacturing beautiful, white, and fine salt), Kinoshita, 117, and Wright, 194.
5. Coigangiu (They exported salt and the Khan gained income), Kinoshita, 125, and Wright, 201.
6. Cingiu (They produced a large quantity of salt), Kinoshita, 126, and Wright, 202.
[19] Vogel, Ulrich Hans, 293.
[20] Pelliot, Paul, 170.
[21] Vogel, Ulrich Hans, 317-328.
[22] Li Chunlong(李春龙), and Liu Jingmao(刘景毛), 144.
[23] Vogel, Ulrich Hans, 288-293.
References
References
Polo, Marco, edited by Kinoshita. The Description of the World. Hackett Publishing Company, 2016.
Finnigan, Jonathan. Marco Polo: The China Mystery Revealed, Episode 3. Alexander Street, 2004.
https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cvideo_work%7C2856881.
Wang Xin (王欣). “About the Editions of The Travels of Marco Polo (关于《马可·波罗游记》的版本问题).” “The Conversation between the Silk Road and Civilizations (丝绸之路与文明的对话),” Xueshu Taolunhui Lunwenji (学术讨论会论文集).Ed.. Xinjiang Renmin Chubanshe (新疆人民出版社), 2006, 363-390.
Kellogg, Patricia B. “Did you know?” National Geography, 2008, https://web.archive.org/web/20080205054538/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0105/feature1/index.html.
Larner, John. Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World. Yale University Press, 1999.
Reichert, Folker E. Begegnungen mit China: die Entdeckung Ostasiens im Mittelalter. Sigmaringen, 1992.
Yang Zhijiu (杨志玖). Marco Polo was in China (《马可波罗在中国》). Nankai University Press, 1999.
Menard, Philippe. “L'édition du Devisement du Monde de Marco Polo.” Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2005, 149-1, pp. 407-435.
Wood, Frances. “Did Marco Polo go to China?” Westview Press, 1996.
Polo, Marco, edited by Thomas Wright. The travels of Marco Polo, the Venetian. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
Yule, Henry. Book of ser Marco Polo Vol 1. John Murray, 1903.
Yule, Henry. Book of ser Marco Polo Vol 2. John Murray, 1903.
Vogel, Hans Ulrich. Marco Polo Was in China : New Evidence from Currencies, Salts and Revenues. Brill, 2012.
Pelliot, Paul. Notes On Marco Polo Vol 1. Imprimerie Nationale, 1959.
Li Chunlong(李春龙), and Liu Jingmao(刘景毛). Jingtai Yunnan Tujing Zhishu Jiaozhi (《景泰云南图经志书校注》). Yunnan Minzu Chubanshe (云南民族出版社), 2002.
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