A rare manuscript’s discovery brought Il Milione, Marco Polo’s famous travel account, high up in the interest of scholars and the public. The document surfaced in the Biblioteca Diocesana Ludovico Jacobilli in Foligno, a historic town in Umbria, central Italy. This significant find comes as the world marks the 700th anniversary of Marco Polo’s death (1254–1324), a milestone commemorated through academic and cultural events, especially in Polo’s hometown of Venice.
Polo and Il Milione
Marco Polo, the Venetian explorer, charmed Europe with his detailed descriptions of the customs, cultures, and wealth of Asia—particularly China—during his 24-year journey through the Mongol Empire under Kublai Khan. His work, Il Milione (known in English as The Travels of Marco Polo), provided Europeans with one of the earliest comprehensive views of the Silk Road and the Mongol Empire. This is why Il Milione influenced future explorers like Christopher Columbus (who famously had a copy of the book with him while traveling across the Atlantic) and spurred European interest in establishing trade routes to Asia, paving the way for the Age of Exploration.
The manuscript
The recent discovery in Foligno adds to the 145 known manuscripts of Il Milione, each of which offers unique insights into the spread of Polo’s tales across medieval Europe. Labeled Jacobilli A.II.9, the 110-page manuscript had eluded scholars until its recent identification by Fabio Soncin, a doctoral student from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Although incomplete, it belongs to a translation of Polo’s work known as the “VA” version, which likely originated in northeastern Italy in the early 14th century. This version is notable for its influence on many subsequent Latin and vernacular translations, especially those used in religious settings due to careful edits that excluded potentially controversial content.
The manuscript’s discovery is part of a broader research initiative led by scholars from Ca’ Foscari University to shed light on the transmission and evolution of Il Milione across regions and languages. This find enriches our understanding of how Polo’s work was interpreted, adapted, and circulated during medieval times.
2024: a year dedicated to Marco Polo
The announcement of the manuscript’s discovery coincided with an important conference titled Marco Polo, il libro e l’Asia, organized by Ca’ Foscari University to celebrate Polo’s legacy. During the event, the university unveiled the first digital edition of Il Milione, offering scholars unprecedented access to multiple versions of Polo’s text from different historical periods and languages, all in an open-access format. This digital edition also includes interactive maps tracing Polo’s journey and glossaries that provide deeper insight into the places and cultures he encountered.
This discovery, along with the newly-launched digital edition, reinforces Il Milione’s importance not only to historians but also to those studying the transmission of knowledge between cultures, as Polo’s accounts of China and Mongolia, although sometimes embellished, were one of the few sources of information about these distant lands in medieval Europe. Today, the continued study of Il Milione provides valuable insights into medieval European perceptions of the East, trade routes like the Silk Road, and the early connections between Europe and Asia.
