Synopses & Reviews
In the thirteenth century, Italian merchant and explorer Marco Polo traveled from Venice to the far reaches of Asia, a journey he chronicled in a narrative titled
Il Milione, later known as
The Travels of Marco Polo. While Poloand#8217;s writings would go on to inspire the likes of Christopher Columbus, scholars have long debated their veracity. Some have argued that Polo never even reached China, while others believe that he came as far as the Americas. Now, thereand#8217;s new evidence for this historical puzzle: a very curious collection of fourteen little-known maps and related documents said to have belonged to the family of Marco Polo himself.
In The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps, historian of cartography Benjamin B. Olshin offers the first credible book-length analysis of these artifacts, charting their course from obscure origins in the private collection of Italian-American immigrant Marcian Rossi in the 1930s; to investigations of their authenticity by the Library of Congress, J. Edgar Hoover, and the FBI; to the work of the late cartographic scholar Leo Bagrow; to Olshinand#8217;s own efforts to track down and study the Rossi maps, all but one of which are in the possession of Rossiand#8217;s great-grandson Jeffrey Pendergraft. Are the maps forgeries, facsimiles, or modernized copies? Did Marco Poloand#8217;s daughtersand#151;whose names appear on several of the artifactsand#151;preserve in them geographic information about Asia first recorded by their father? Or did they inherit maps created by him? Did Marco Polo entrust the maps to Admiral Ruggero Sanseverino, who has links to Rossiand#8217;s family line? Or, if the maps have no connection to Marco Polo, who made them, when, and why?
Regardless of the mapsand#8217; provenance, Olshinand#8217;s taleand#151;stretching from the remote reaches of the northern Pacific to early Chinese legendsand#151;takes readers on a journey confounding yet fascinating, offering insights into Italian history, the age of exploration, and the wonders of cartography.
Review
andldquo;A needed, not wildly speculative contribution to the history of cartography, The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps carefully considers the content, context, and translation of these documents, and does not attempt to fill in missing links if the evidence is not sufficient to support a valid conclusion. Olshin presents well-informed speculation considering the implications of this set of maps, whether they are pure fabrication, created at some time after the purported events, or are actually what they appear to be. If the latter is the case, they represent a remarkable survival of fourteenth-century manuscripts that document in part Marco Poloandrsquo;s travels through Asia to China, and possibly a much earlier discovery of North America (than Columbusand#39;s), particularly along its northwestern coast. A very balanced interpretation.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;The maps and documents associated with the Rossi family and the various claims that they date back to the time of Marco Polo have always been a mystery and a problem for historians of cartography, and, as such, they have cried out for a detailed, balanced, and careful scholarly study. Their history, discounted by some as mere fantasy, has scarcely been approached with the tools of serious scholarship. Olshin has finally produced not only a careful and serious study, but also a compelling and fascinatingand#160;story that once again makes these maps objects of serious interest for all those concerned with medieval cartography and the transmission of geographic information through time.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;A remarkable book on a remarkable subject. The conundrum posed by a collection of fourteen old maps and letters of different dates pertaining, or purporting to pertain, to Marco Poloandrsquo;s travels in Asia in the thirteenth century is exquisitely dissected. The transmission of the documents themselves and the information they contain is scrutinized; possible (and impossible) connections are identified; genealogies are traced; and inconsistencies in personal and geographic names written in or coming from Italian, Latin, Chinese, and Arabic are exposed and explanations offered. Olshin wears his learning lightly. His lucid prose and straightforward approach capture from the beginning his readersandrsquo; attention, but they are then left to draw their own conclusions. Impressed by the number of documents involved and the complex ramifications of interconnections spanning seven centuries, even the most skeptical scholar would be hard pressed not to find for their authenticity, even if not all links in the chain are yet fully reforged.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;For a guy who claimed to spend seventeen years in China as a confidant of Kublai Khan, Marco Polo left a surprisingly skimpy paper trail. No Asian sources mention the footloose Italian. The only record of his thirteenth-century odyssey through the Far East is the hot air of his own Travels, which was actually an andlsquo;as told toandrsquo; penned by a writer of romances. But a set of fourteen parchments, now collected and exhaustively studied for the first time, give us a raft of new stories about Poloandrsquo;s journeys and something notably missing from his own account: maps. . . . and#160;But as Olshin is first to admit, the authenticity of the ten maps and four texts is hardly settled. The ink remains untested, and a radiocarbon study of the parchment of one key mapandmdash;the only one subjected to such analysisandmdash;dates the sheepskin vellum to the fifteenth or sixteenth century, a sign the map is at best a copy. Another quandary is that Polo himself wrote nothing of personal maps or of lands beyond Asia, though he did once boast: andlsquo;I did not tell half of what I saw.andrsquo;andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Could rewrite history as we know it.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;The parchmentsandrsquo; existence first came to light in the 1930s when Rossi contacted the Library of Congress, but the collection has never been exhaustively analyzedandmdash;until now. Olshin . . . has spent more than a decade contextualizing the documents and translating their Italian, Latin, Arabic, and Chinese inscriptions. . . . Olshin is the first scholar in decades to see these originals. By painstakingly tracing Rossiandrsquo;s ancestry, Olshin found that his explanation that Polo had bestowed the documents upon a Venetian admiral and that they had been passed down through generations of the Rossi family was credible.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Olshinandrsquo;s book tugs powerfully at the imagination of anybody interested in the Polo story, medieval history, old maps, geographical ideas, European voyages of discovery, and early Chinese legends.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;A valiant attempt to make sense of these documents, applying scholarly analysis from several different points of view: cartographic, mythological, historical, and linguistic. . . . Olshin is a thorough and thoughtful researcher and has successfully avoided speculating on the veracity of these frustrating and intriguing manuscripts. . . . This is a well written book which will be of interest to anyone interested in medieval history, cartography in general and Marco Polo in particular.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;A balanced, detailed, and scrupulously unspeculative work of cartographical scholarship, carefully footnoted and illustrated, not another andlsquo;who discovered?andrsquo; sensationandmdash;a book that after a lapse of more than half a century attempts mainly to andlsquo;lay a foundation for a deeper understanding of the material.andrsquo;andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Olshin . . . brings to The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps linguistic skills acquired during work and travels in the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America, as well as an interest in cartography and in the history of exploration. . . . He is on firm ground when noting the known influence on cartography of Marco Poloandrsquo;s travel tales, starting with the Catalan Atlas of 1375, and he is commendably cautious about the documentsandrsquo; provenance, their interconnections, and their purported relationship to the Polo daughters and other named persons. Moreover, The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps is lucidly written and attractively produced with a number of useful illustrations.andrdquo;
Synopsis
This text, ostensibly the autobiography of Portugese explorer Fernandatilde;o Mendes Pinto, came second only to Marco Polo's work in exciting Europe's imagination of the Orient. Chronicling adventures from Ethiopia to Japan, Travels covers twenty years of Mendes Pinto's odyssey as a soldier, a merchant, a diplomat, a slave, a pirate, and a missionary, and continues to overwhelm questions about its source with the sheer enjoyment of its narrative.
"[T]here is plenty here for the modern reader. . . . The vivid descriptions of swashbuckling military campaigns and exotic locations make this a great adventure story. . . . Mendes Pinto may have been a sensitive eyewitness, or a great liar, or a brilliant satirist, but he was certainly more than a simple storyteller."and#8212;Stuart Schwartz, The New York Times
About the Author
Benjamin B. Olshin is associate professor of philosophy and the history and philosophy of science and technology at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He lives in Philadelphia, PA.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Europe under Charles V
Flowering of the Renaissance
Spain under Philip II
Portugal under Manuel I and John III
Publication History of the Book
Translations
Summary of the Text
Influences
The Historical Author
Satire and the Fictive Author
A Note on Translation
1. The Early Years
2. The Passage to India
3. A Renegade in the Red Sea
4. The Land of Prester John
5. Captive in Mocha
6. On the Slave Block
7. The Siege of Diu
8. Impressment at Sea
9. The Queen of Honowar
10. Defeat at Honowar
11. The Queen's Treachery
12. Departure for Malacca
13. The Battak Envoy
14. Through the Jungles of Sumatra
15. At the Court of the Battak
16. Observing the Battak at War
17. The Battak Army in Retreat
18. The Battak's Warning
19. A Malay Tyrant
20. The Elusive Isle of Gold
21. The Elusive Isle of Gold
22. The Ambassador from Aaru
23. Shipwrecked off the Island of Sumatra
24. Captive in Siak
25. Back in Malacca
26. The Achinese Threat to Portuguese Power
27. The Death of the King of Aaru
28. The Queen of Aaru Seeks Revenge
29. The Queen of Aaru in Malacca
30. The Queen of Aaru Departs in Anger
31. Jantana Lays Claim to Aaru
32. Jantana and Achin at War
33. Rescue at Sea
34. Tomé Lobo in Danger
35. Murder of the King of Pahang
36. Disaster in the Harbor of Lugor
37. Lady of the Swamp
38. Antonio de Faria Swears Vengeance
39. In Search of Khoja Hassim
40. Pirates off the Coast of Champa
41. Exploring Champa
42. Night Raid off Hainan Island
43. The Armenian's Story
44. The Pearl Fishers of Quemoy
45. Gathering Information in Hainan
46. Encounter with a Chinese Pirate
47. The Unlucky Bride
48. No Word of the Lord
49. Problems Unloading the Cargo
50. Victory in the Madel River
51. The Corsair's Confession
52. King of the Sea
53. Shipwreck off the Isle of Thieves
54. Marooned
55. A Precocious Child
56. Partners in Piracy
57. News of Khoja Hassim
58. Preparations for the Attack
59. A Glorious Victory
60. After the Battle
61. Grounded on the Coast of China
62. The Storm's Ravages
63. The Prisoners of Nouday
64. The Mandarin's Reply
65. The Sack of Nouday
66. Pirates at the Gates of Ning-po
67. A Message from Ning-po
68. Antonio de Faria's Reception in Ning-po
69. The Vicar of Ning-po
70. A Banquet in Honor of Antonio de Faria
71. The Voyage to Calempluy
72. A Doubtful Course
73. Of Men and Beasts
74. Similau Disappears
75. The Fabulous Isle of Calempluy
76. Desecration of the Tombs
77. The Old Hermit of Calempluy
78. The Hermit Spreads the Alarm
79. Antonio de Faria Meets His End
80. Castaways in China
81. The Wayside Shelter
82. Thrown to the Leeches
83. An Upper-Class Chinese Family
84. Arrested in Taypor
85. Transferred to Nanking
86. Legal Aid for the Poor
87. A Letter of Recommendation
88. The City of Nanking
89. The Pagoda of Pocasser
90. The Great Albuquerque Defamed
91. Inez de Leiria
92. The Legend of Nancá
93. The Child Prophet
94. The Founding of Peking
95. The Great Wall of China
96. The Submerged City
97. Business and Trade Practices in China
98. The Floating Cities of China
99. More about the Wonders of China
100. Arrival in Peking
101. A Favorable Ruling
102. Of Judges and Influence
103. Sentenced to Hard Labor
104. The Kindly Captain of Quansy
105. The Splendors of Peking
106. Chinese Banqueting Houses
107. Sightseeing in Peking
108. Prison of the Outcasts
109. Treasure House of the Dead
110. The Shrine of the Queen of Heaven
111. The Shrine of the 113 Kings
112. Social Welfare in China
113. Provisions against Famine
114. Farewell to Peking
115. A Point of Honor
116. A Chance Encounter with Vasco Calvo
117. The Tartar Invasion
118. Jorge Mendes Takes a Chance
119. A Portuguese Hero among the Tartars
120. On to Peking with the Tartars
121. Summoned in Audience
122. The Tartar King
123. The Tartars Lift the Siege
124. At the Tartar Court
125. Jorge Mendes Stays Behind
126. Departure from Tartary
127. A Heathen Pope
128. En Route to Cochinchina
129. Death on the Suicide Pyre
130. The Tartar Ambassador at the Court of Cochin
131. The Chochinese King Returns in Triumph
132. The Discovery of Japan
133. The Inquisitive Prince of Tanegashima
134. How Firearms Came to Japan
135. The King of Bungo
136. A Shooting Accident
137. The Prince's Recovery
138. Shipwreck off the Ryukyu Islands
139. Arrested for Piracy
140. Under Sentence of Death
141. The Compassionate Women of the Ryukyus
142. The Dowager Queen of the Ryukyus
143. A Brief Description of the Ryukyu Islands
144. Mission to Martaban
145. The Pathetic Little King
146. A Throne of Straw
147. Arrival in Martaban
148. The Siege of Martaban
149. Martaban Capitulates
150. The Surrender Ceremony
151. The Sack of Martaban
152. The Burmese Tyrant's Revenge
153. Betrayed by a Portuguese Nobleman
154. The Burmese Attack Prome
155. The Fall of Prome
156. The Fall of Meleitay
157. New Military Alliances
158. Journey to the Land of the Calaminhan
159. The Pagoda of Tinagogo
160. The Festival of Xipatilau
161. The Frightful Penitents of Tinagogo
162. Encounter with a Portuguese Woman
163. At the Palace of the Calaminhan
164. News of the Redeemer
165. A Brief Description of the Calaminhan's Empire
166. Strange Races and Places
167. Funeral Rites for the Holy Rolim
168. Election of the New Rolim
169. The New Rolim Ascends the Holy Throne
170. Escape from Burmese Captivity
171. Back in Goa
172. The Ambassadress from Java
173. The Javanese Lay Siege to Pasuruan
174. The Amucks Sally Forth
175. The Pasuruans Attack Again
176. A Portuguese Renegade
177. A Young Assassin
178. Anarchy in Demak
179. Struggle over a Life Raft
180. Ransomed from Slavery
181. Portuguese Mercenaries in Siam
182. The King of Siam Poisoned by the Queen
183. The Good King of Siam
184. The Queen and Her Lover Usurp the Throne
185. The Burmese Invade Siam
186. The Siege of Ayuthia
187. The Final Burmese Assault
188. Rebellion in Pegu
189. The Marvelous Kingdom of Siam
190. The Burmese Tyrant Assassinated
191. The Abominable Crime of Diogo Soares
192. Stoned by the Mob
193. The Xemindó Proclaimed King of Pegu
194. The Burmese Recapture Pegu
195. Permission to Sack Pegu Denied
196. The Chaumigrem's Triumphant Entry into Pegu
197. The Xemindó Captured and Condemned
198. The Execution of the Xemindó
199. Funeral Rites of the Xemindó
200. The Second Voyage to Japan
201. The Prince Avenges His Father's Death
202. Two Japanese Passengers Taken Aboard
203. With Francis Xavier in Malacca
204. Repairing the Fleet
205. Diogo Soares Saves the Day
206. Victory in the Perlis River
207. Francis Xavier's Revelation
208. Francis Xavier in Japan
209. An Invitation from the King of Bungo
210. At the<>