The Journeyer

Since yesterday, I have started reading Marco Polo's biography Description of the World translated by Gary Jannings entitled as The Journeyer.

I have come to know that this biography was actually written by a fellow prisoner of Marco Polo, Luigi Rustichello. One day, in prison, Luigi came to Polo and said,

Messer Marco, I am Lugi Rustichello, late of Pisa, and I have been a captive here since long before you arrived. I have listerend to you telling that hilariously ribald story of the Hindu with his ahem caught in the holy rock hole. I have heard you tell it three times now. Once to your fellow prisoners, again to the warder and yet again to the visiting almoner of the Brotherhood of Justice. You will soon be weary of the telling. Many more persons will want to hear that tale and all the other tales you have told, and any others which perhaps you have not told yet. Before you tire of the telling, or of the stories themselves, why do you not simply tell to me all your recollections of your travels and adventures? Tell them only the once and let me set them down on paper. I am a writer of some facility and much experience. Your tales could make a considerable book, and multitudes of People then can read it for themselves.

And so Marco did, and so Lugui did, and so the multitudes have done. Though many other journeyers before Marco had written of their travels, none of those works ever enjoyed the immediate and continuing popularity of his Description of the World.

So you too want to enjoy that book? Check the following links...