About Marco Polo Samarkand

Abstract

Marco Polo’s world-wide famous travelogue known with different
names such as Devisement dou Monde “The description of the World”,
Livres des Merveilles du Monde, “Book of the Marvels of the World”, and Il
Milione “The Million” in Italian, is a goldmine of information regarding the
mysteries and marvels of the countries and peoples along the Silk Road,
especially concerning the Ta(r)tars, i.e. the Mongols, as they were called
at that time in Europe. Already during the XIII and XIV centuries, Marco
Polo’s travelogue had experienced a huge success. It was copied several
times and translated in various languages, spreading all over Europe and
becoming a real best-seller. The original manuscript is, however, lost. As
is well known, the language in which the lost original manuscript was
written – i.e Franco-Italian, a mixed language (Mischsprache) consisting of
a French-based language mixed with Italianisms – is recorded only in the
manuscript fr. 1116 preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (F).
For the overall classification of Marco Polian codices, see Gadrat-Ouerfelli
(2015, 382-385) and Simion (2019, 54-55).