(Majors P. Henry, P. 62.)
There Is No Evidence To Justify Any Absolute Expression Of Disbelief;
And If Any Map-Maker With The Spirit Of The Author Of The Carta
Catalana Then Dwelt In Venice, Polo Certainly Could Not Have Gone To
His Grave Uncatechised.
But I should suspect the map to have been a
copy of the old one that existed in the Sala dello Scudo of the Ducal
Palace.
The maps now to be seen painted on the walls of that Hall, and on
which Polo's route is marked, are not of any great interest. But in
the middle of the 15th century there was an old Descriptio Orbis sive
Mappamundus in the Hall, and when the apartment was renewed in 1459 a
decree of the Senate ordered that such a map should be repainted on
the new walls. This also perished by a fire in 1483. On the motion of
Ramusio, in the next century, four new maps were painted. These had
become dingy and ragged, when, in 1762, the Doge Marco Foscarini
caused them to be renewed by the painter Francesco Grisellini. He
professed to have adhered closely to the old maps, but he certainly
did not, as Morelli testifies. Eastern Asia looks as if based on a
work of Ramusio's age, but Western Asia is of undoubtedly modern
character. (See Operetti di Iacopo Morelli, Ven. 1820, I. 299.)
[10] "Humboldt confirms the opinion I have more than once expressed that
too much must not be inferred from the silence of authors.
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