Material Title with large woodcut and ornamental border, woodcut initials. Old paper boards, remains of two leather ties, secondary long-stitching to spine.
Dimensions 15.2 × 10 cm
Place of Creation Brescia
Price €525,000
Status Vetted

About the Work

Second Italian edition, the rarest of all 15th-century editions, one of only five known copies. This is the only copy of this edition, as well as the only complete copy of any incunable edition, recorded in commerce in the past 30 years.

Marco Polo was born into a prominent Venetian trading family. In 1271, he travelled eastwards with his father and uncle, through Syria, Jerusalem, Turkey, Persia, and India, to China. Shortly after his return to Venice, Polo dictated his adventures to Rustichello da Pisa, an Arthurian romance writer, while both were prisoners in Genoa in 1298. The manuscript was written in literary Franco-Italian; the two 15th-century Italian editions are in the modern language closest to the original. His travel account provided the first detailed accounts of China, Tibet, Japan, and south-east Asia, among many others. His geographical observations were the most accurate up to that time, and a major influence on European cartography for centuries.

After nearly two centuries of wide manuscript circulation, the text was first printed in German (1477 and 1481, the latter within a composite volume), followed by a Latin edition (1483-85) and the first Italian edition of 1496. The present Brescia printing is a reissue of the 1496 Italian text, with minor revisions to the introductory material.

Whereas the earlier 15th-century editions are represented by one or two dozen institutional copies worldwide, only four other copies of this second Italian edition are recorded, all in institutional libraries: two in the United States (the Morgan and the Huntington) and two in Italy (Brescia and Verona).

All 15th-century editions of Marco Polo are scarce on the market, but this edition is exceptionally so.

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Provenance

Pierre Bergé (1930-2017), French bibliophile, his bookplate on the inside front wrapper; his sale, Sotheby’s, 14 December 2018, lot 833.

Literature

Cordier, Centenaire de Marco Polo, 15; Cordier 1969; Church 15; Goff P-904; GW M34802; ISTC ip00904000 (lists the Bergé copy as the fifth recorded copy); Printing and the Mind of Man 139 (1st Italian); Sander 5829.

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