Octavo (152 x 100 mm). 64 ff., unnumbered. Title with large woodcut and ornamental border, woodcut initials. Old paper boards, remains of two leather ties, secondary long-stitching to spine. Housed in custom red morocco clamshell box, velvet-lined, by Boichot. Early pentrials to front flyleaf, some initials supplied in ink in an early hand. Recased and restitched, spine and extremities refurbished, covers rubbed and somewhat soiled, some marginal finger-soiling or ink marks, intermittent light mainly marginal foxing, small repaired worm trail at blank gutter from gathering c to last, another to text from gathering f to last, affecting a few letters later supplied in ink, light staining intermittently along blank gutter, and to text of last two gatherings, a bit heavier to last 4 leaves, with some ink fading (lightly washed): a very good copy.

Marco Polo (1254–1324) 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 200 years of wide manuscript circulation, the work was first printed in German (1477 and 1481, the latter within a collection of works), then Latin (1483-85) and Italian (1496). The present edition is a reprint of the 1496 text, with minor revisions in the introduction. While the earlier 15th-century editions survive in one or two dozen institutional copies worldwide, only four other copies of this second Italian edition, all institutional, are extant, two in the US (Morgan and Huntington) and two in Italy (Brescia and Verona). All 15th-century editions are rare on the market.

“Marco Polo was a member of a prosperous Venetian family engaged in commerce. He set out with his father and uncle in 1271 on a journey to the East. Starting from Acre the party travelled through Persia and the upper Oxus to the Pamir plateau, and then through Mongolia and the Gobi desert to the extreme north-west of China, reaching Shantung in 1275. Here they sojourned at the Court of Kublai Khan until 1292, finally arriving back in Venice, after travelling through south-east Asia and southern India, in 1295. During his stay in China Marco Polo took an active part in the administration of the country and travelled widely in the Great Khan's service. He saw ‘or obtained knowledge of’ large parts of China, northern Burma, Tibet, Japan, south-east Asia, the East Indies, Ceylon, southern India, Abyssinia, Zanzibar and Madagascar, Siberia and the Arctic” (PMM 39).

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

ISTC ip00904000 (lists the Bergé copy as the fifth recorded copy); Goff P-904; Sander 5829; GW M34802; Church 15; Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, col. 1969; PMM 139 (1st Italian); Cordier, Centenaire de Marco Polo, 15.