La diffusion européenne de l'édition portugaise du Livre de Marco Polo (1502)

The Livro de Marco Polo published by Valentim Fernandes in Lisbon in 1502 is not only one of the earliest prints of the celebrated Venitian travelogue in the vernacular but also constitutes an important milestone in the history of Portuguese edition, perhaps more due to the other texts included in this compilation than to Marco Polo's narrative itself. In fact, the introductory remarks by Fernandes himself and Niccolo de' Conti's travel account had a determinant effect in the geographic culture of sixteenth century Europe, and the 1502 edition accelerated the publication of Polo's first Spanish translation one year later and found its way to the material collected by Gian Battista Ramusio in his Navigazioni et Viaggi. Although in the second half of the seventeenth century the Livro de Marco Paulo was still the source of a Dutch translation of Niccolo de' Conti's and Girolamo da Stephano's narratives it had much less of an impact in Portugal, and the main chroniclers of the overseas expansion had recourse to other editions of Polo's book, namely the Latin translation published in the Novus orbis regionum and the Italian version redrafted by Ramusio.