دانلود کتاب Francesco Pipino and the Manuscripts of Marco Polo's Travels

Since the monumental edition of Marco Polo’s Travels by L. F. Benedetto in 1928, there has been no comprehensive survey of the known manuscripts or search for additional manuscripts. The present study refocusses attention on the manuscripts as witnesses to readership: as archeological evidence in their physical appearance; as an intellectual milieu in their accompanying texts; as a response to the information of the Travels in the notes entered by readers in their margins. A systematic search for additional manuscripts, and a paleographical and codicological examination of all manuscripts was conducted, with particular emphasis on one version of the text, considered representative of medieval readership, since it survives in 43% of the 135 extant manuscripts: the translation from Venetian into Latin completed py the Dominican friar, Francesco Pipino of Bologna between 1314 and 1324.

Chapters One and Two address the broadly divergent corpus of all codices: it is shown that the language of a given manuscript determines its physical appearance, and that marginalia identify reader attitude towards the authenticity of the Travels. Chapters Three-Five pertain to Francesco Pipino. Archival research has added to our knowledge of his life in Padua; his chronicle is analysed in relationship to his translation of the Travels. The translation is examined for date, circulation in various subgroups, and recension. Benedetto had proposed that a fuller version once existed; his position is rejected on the basis of new manuscript discoveries. Appendices include: list of manuscripts by location and by version; description of the manuscripts; list of medieval inventories containing the Travels, and of medieval authors whose work incorporated information from the Travels.