Marci Pauli Veneti Itinerarium, seu de rebus Orientalibus, Libri tres.

[CONTAINED IN]: Historia Orientalis Haythoni Armenii: et hic subiectum Marci Pauli Veneti Itinerarium, item Fragmentum è Speculo historiali Vincentij Beluacensis eiusdem argumenti. Helmaestadii [i.e. Helmstedt] : [Iacobus Lucius], 1585. Quarto (205 x 160 mm), contemporary speckled calf, spine with raised bands (expertly restored); [8], 211, [3], [69], [11] leaves (lacking the final colophon leaf), with the folding genealogical chart of the family and successors of the Prophet Muhammad bound into the appendix to Hayton of Corycus; text in Latin; mild browning throughout, otherwise excellent.

The third edition in Latin (according to Yule) of Marco Polo’s Travels, after the first of 1485 and the second (in Novus Orbis Regionum) of 1532/37 and 1555.

Unquestionably, the famous account of Marco Polo is the single most important travel narrative of the Middle Ages, one that shaped Western perceptions of Asia and the Islamic world for centuries. Columbus carries a copy of the first Latin edition (1485) with him on his first voyage to the Indies, which he annotated extensively. It might also be argued – as Sabin has done – that it provided a major impetus for the exploration of the New World:

‘The travels of Marco Polo in the East claim a place in an American collection in consequence of the remarks of distinguished geographers that they were perused by Columbus, and that the revelations made by him of the wonders of Cathay and Zipanga stimulated the great navigator to accomplish through the sea, what the Venetian traveller had by land’ (Sabin).

Here, the Travels are bound with two other works by thirteenth-century writers: the Historia Orientalis of Armenian monk and historiographer Hayton of Corycus (c.1235-c.1314), which contains descriptions of Cathay, Tartary, Turkestan, India, Persia, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, Syria, and the Saracen Empire, and is an important early source on Islam; and a fragment of the Speculum historiale of Vincent of Beauvais (c.1190-1264), also relating to the Far East and Islam, which formed part of his encyclopaedic Speculum Maius, or The Great Mirror. All three works were edited by Reinerus Reineccius.

Provenance :

Frederik Muller Rare Books, Holland

Private collection, Tokyo, acquired from the above circa 2000