The
Venetians Were Totally Defeated In A Great Naval Engagement, With The Loss
Of Their Admiral And Eighty-Five Ships, And Marco Polo Had The Misfortune
To Be Among The Number Of The Prisoners.
Harris alleges that he remained a prisoner during several years, in spite
of every offer of ransom that was made for his liberation.
But in this he
must have mistaken, or been misled by the authorities which he trusted to,
as peace was concluded in 1299, the year immediately subsequent to the
naval engagement in which he was made prisoner. While in prison at Genoa,
many of the young nobility are said to have resorted to Marco, to listen to
the recital of his wonderful travels and surprizing adventures; and they
are said to have prevailed upon him to send to Venice for the notes which
he had drawn up during his peregrinations, by means of which the following
relation is said to have been written in Latin from has dictation. From the
original Latin, the account of his travels was afterwards translated into
Italian; and from this again, abridgements were afterwards made in Latin
and diffused over Europe.
According to Baretti[2], the travels of Marco Polo were dictated by him in
1299, while in the prison of Genoa, to one Rustigielo, an inhabitant of
Pisa, who was his fellow prisoner. They were afterwards published in
Italian, and subsequently translated into Latin by Pessuri, a Dominican
monk of Bologna. Copies of the original manuscript, though written in the
Venetian dialect, which is extremely different from the Tuscan or pure
Italian, were multiplied with great rapidity in all parts of Italy, and
even made their way into France and Germany.
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