The Voyages of Marco Polo. Марко ПолоЧитать онлайн книгу.
the Arctic Sea. South of these are Aureacithis and Asmirea (Ptolemy's Auxacitis and Asmiraea), and Serica Regio. Then following the northern coast Balor Regio,[18] Judei Clausi, i.e. the Ten Tribes who are constantly associated or confounded with the Shut-up Nations of Gog and Magog. These impinge upon the River Polisacus, flowing into the Northern Ocean in Lat. 75°, but which is in fact no other than Polo's Pulisanghin![19] Immediately south of this is Tholomon Provincia (Polo's again), and on the coast Tangut, Cathaya, the Rivers Caramoran and Oman (a misreading of Polo's Quian), Quinsay and Mangi.
[Sidenote: Gradual disappearance of Polo's nomenclature.]
86. The Maps of Mercator (1587) and Magini (1597) are similar in character, but more elaborate, introducing China as a separate system. Such indeed also is Blaeu's Map (1663) excepting that Ptolemy's contributions are reduced to one or two.
In Sanson's Map (1659) the data of Polo and the mediaeval Travellers are more cautiously handled, but a new element of confusion is introduced in the form of numerous features derived from Edrisi.
It is scarcely worth while to follow the matter further. With the increase of knowledge of Northern Asia from the Russian side, and that of China from the Maps of Martini, followed by the surveys of the Jesuits, and with the real science brought to bear on Asiatic Geography by such men as De l'Isle and D'Anville, mere traditional nomenclature gradually disappeared. And the task which the study of Polo has provided for the geographers of later days has been chiefly that of determining the true localities that his book describes under obsolete or corrupted names.
[My late illustrious friend, Baron A. E. Nordenskiöld, who has devoted much time and labour to the study of Marco Polo (see his Periplus, Stockholm, 1897), and published a facsimile edition of one of the French MSS. kept in the Stockholm Royal Library (see vol. ii. Bibliography, p. 570), has given to The Geographical Journal for April, 1899, pp. 396–406, a paper on The Influence of the "Travels of Marco Polo" on Jacobo Gastaldi's Maps of Asia. He writes (p. 398) that as far as he knows, none "of the many learned men who have devoted their attention to the discoveries of Marco Polo, have been able to refer to any maps in which all or almost all those places mentioned by Marco Polo are given. All friends of the history of geography will therefore be glad to hear that such an atlas from the middle of the sixteenth century really does exist, viz. Gastaldi's 'Prima, seconda e terza parte dell Asia.'" All the names of places in Ramusio's Marco Polo are introduced in the maps of Asia of Jacobo Gastaldi (1561). Cf. Periplus, liv., lv., and lvi.
I may refer to what both Yule and myself say supra of the Catalan
Map.—H. C.]
[Sidenote: Alleged introduction of Block-printed Books into Europe by
Marco Polo.]
87. Before concluding, it may be desirable to say a few words on the subject of important knowledge other than geographical, which various persons have supposed that Marco Polo must have introduced from Eastern Asia to Europe.
Respecting the mariner's compass and gunpowder I shall say nothing, as no one now, I believe, imagines Marco to have had anything to do with their introduction. But from a highly respectable source in recent years we have seen the introduction of Block-printing into Europe connected with the name of our Traveller. The circumstances are stated as follows:[20]
"In the beginning of the 15th century a man named Pamphilo Castaldi, of Feltre … was employed by the Seignory or Government of the Republic, to engross deeds and public edicts of various kinds … the initial letters at the commencement of the writing being usually ornamented with red ink, or illuminated in gold and colours
"According to Sansovino, certain stamps or types had been invented some time previously by Pietro di Natali, Bishop of Aquiloea.[21] These were made at Murano of glass, and were used to stamp or print the outline of the large initial letters of public documents, which were afterwards filled up by hand. … Pamphilo Castaldi improved on these glass types, by having others made of wood or metal, and having seen several Chinese books which the famous traveller Marco Polo had brought from China, and of which the entire text was printed with wooden blocks, he caused moveable wooden types to be made, each type containing a single letter; and with these he printed several broadsides and single leaves, at Venice, in the year 1426. Some of these single sheets are said to be preserved among the archives at Feltre. …
"The tradition continues that John Faust, of Mayence … became acquainted with Castaldi, and passed some time with him, at his Scriptorium, … at Feltre;"
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