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Marco Polo
Marco Polo dictated his stories to his cellmate, Rustichello da Pisa, but the text was then translated by Dominican friars into Latin, paving the way to its becoming one of the world’s first bestsellers. Photograph: ENA
Marco Polo dictated his stories to his cellmate, Rustichello da Pisa, but the text was then translated by Dominican friars into Latin, paving the way to its becoming one of the world’s first bestsellers. Photograph: ENA

Marco Polo parchment sheds light on last year of his life in Venice

This article is more than 4 years old

Document supports theory that Polo had close ties to friars who may have helped edit travel book

Researchers in Venice have discovered a document that strengthens the theory that a group of friars played a hand in the revision of Marco Polo’s book about his travels.

The legendary merchant and explorer set off from Venice in 1271 at the age of 17 and spent more than two decades travelling through Asia. He returned to Venice in 1295 and was imprisoned in Genoa three years later after becoming embroiled in a naval conflict between the two cities.

It was in prison that he dictated his stories to his cellmate, Rustichello da Pisa, a romance writer, who jotted them down, paving the way for what eventually became one of the world’s first bestsellers.

Researchers from Ca’ Foscari University in Venice recently discovered a parchment in the city’s archives that testified to Polo’s close connection to the Dominican friars of the Santi Giovanni e Paolo convent, close to where he resided, in the years following his release from prison.

In the document, dated 1323, a year before he died, Marco Polo is listed as the only layperson among the witnesses of the order’s acceptance of money left to it by a Venetian nobleman, Giovanni dalle Boccole, in his will.

Among the witnesses named on the document, which was discovered by Marcello Bolognari, were Friars Benvenuto and Centorio, who were included in Polo’s will.

The discovery sheds new light on Polo’s life after his return to Venice, painting a picture of a man who not only managed his family’s business but also participated in religious life.

“This document means that the friars considered Polo to be a really important person for the convent, which was quite exceptional for a convent at that time,” said Antonio Montefusco, the professor at Ca’ Foscari who supervised the research project.

The document also gives a new twist on the theory that the friars helped to revise Polo’s book. The draft that Polo and Rustichello da Pisa produced in the Genoese prison was written in Franco-Italian. When Polo returned to Venice, he made some adjustments. For the friars, Polo’s accounts were a precious source of information about travel and spiritual beliefs in the east. However, they did not understand Franco-Italian and so they translated the revised manuscript into Latin.

But they were unsatisfied with the original translation and thus translated it again, with the text eventually becoming more descriptive and “moralised”, according to Montefusco. The friars acted almost like “contemporary editors”, he added, with the Latin version leading to the book’s success across Europe.

“The Latin version realised in the convent was based on a text that Marco Polo had in Venice, and we believe that Polo reworked his text with the help of the friars,” said Montefusco. “It was this Latin version that really became the bestseller.”

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