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The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps BENJAMIN B. OLSHIN The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London BENJAMIN B. OLSHIN is associate professor of philosophy and the history and philosophy of science and technology at the Univer- sity of the Arts, Philadelphia. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2014 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2014. Printed in the United States of America 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-14982-0 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-14996-7 (e-book) DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226149967.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Olshin, Benjamin B., author. The mysteries of the Marco Polo maps / Benjamin B. Olshin. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-226-14982-0 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-226-14996-7 (e-book) 1. Polo, Marco, 1254–1323? 2. Cartography—History. I. Title. G370.P9O57 2014 912.092—dc23 2014003274 This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). Contents List of Illustrations vii Introduction 1 1 The “Marco Polo Maps” and the Polo Family 15 2 Who Was “Biaxio Sirdomap”? 28 3 To the Distant East 38 4 The Daughters’ Maps 56 5 Chronicles and Histories 68 6 Maps of the New World 88 7 Conclusions and Future Directions 98 Acknowledgments 123 Appendix 1: An Inventory of the Documents 125 Appendix 2: A Partial Genealogy of the Rossi Family 129 Appendix 3: Genealogy of the Family of Marco Polo the Traveller 131 Notes 133 Bibliography 155 Index 167 v Illustrations Figures 1 Filomeno Emanuele Marciano Rossi 4 2 Luigi Rossi 5 3 Document 13 (“Keynote to Pantect Map”), recto and verso 17 4a Document 14 (“Moreta Polo Map 2”), recto (full and close-up views) 18 4b Document 14 (“Moreta Polo Map 2”), verso 18 5 The 1517 map of Pedro Reinel 50 6 The 1522 map of Nuño Garcia de Toreno, eastern portion 51 7a A printed version of the world map of Ptolemy, 1482 53 7b A close-up of the eastern regions of Ptolemy 53 8 One of the 1513 sketch charts of Francisco Rodrigues 54 9a The 1566 map of Paolo Forlani/Bolognino Zaltieri 76 9b The 1566 map of Paolo Forlani/Bolognino Zaltieri: detail of strait between Asia and North America 76 10 A German edition of the late eighteenth-century “Chart of the Strait Between Asia & America . .” by Aaron Arrowsmith 78 vii ILLUSTRATIONS 11 A comparison of the regions around the Bering Strait in the Arrowsmith map with the same area in the “Map with Ship” 79 12 The 1507 world map of Martin Waldseemüller 84 13 The Johann Ruysch map of 1507 85 14 A comparison of the island of Antilla in the “Map of the New World” with Cuba in the “Columbus Map” 89 15 A comparison of the isle of Yezo from the 1630 map of João Teixeira Albernaz with the island of Antilla in the “Map of the New World” 90 16 The “Columbus Map” with the Americas reoriented north to south 96 17 A comparison of the British Isles in the “Moreta Polo Map 2,” verso, and the British Isles in a 1490 edition of Ptolemy 101 18 The West African coast below the Strait of Gibraltar in the “Moreta Polo Map 2,” verso, compared to the West African coast in an edition of Ptolemy 102 19 India/Taprobane in “Moreta Polo Map 2,” verso; India/Taprobane in document 8 (“Moreta Polo Map 1”), recto; and India/Taprobane in a typical Ptolemaic map, with encompassing outline added 103 20a Detail of the region of Fousang on Philippe Buache’s 1752 map 106 20b Detail on Buache’s 1752 map of the supposed route of Hui Shen 106 Plates (following page 94) 1 Document 1 (“Sirdomap Map”), recto 2 Document 2 (“Sirdomap Text”), recto 3 Document 3 (“Bellela Polo Chronicle”), recto 4 Document 4 (“Map with Ship”), recto 5 Document 5 (“Pantect Map”), recto 6 Document 6 (“Fantina Polo Map 1”), recto 7 Document 7 (“Fantina Polo Map 2”), recto 8 Document 8 (“Moreta Polo Map 1”), recto viii ILLUSTRATIONS 9 Document 9 (“Lorenzo Polo Chronicle”), recto 10 Document 12 (“Spinola Chronicle”), recto 11a Document 10 (“Map of the New World”), recto 11b Document 10 (“Map of the New World”), verso 12 Document 11 (“Columbus Map”), recto ix INTRODUCTION This story spans seven centuries and takes us from the farthest reaches of Asia to Italy and fi nally to the United States. But it begins modestly enough: in 1991, I came across a decades-old journal article by the late historian of cartography Leo Bagrow (1881–1957), an article that discussed an obscure and curious collection of old maps pertaining to the voyages of Marco Polo.1 The article also spoke of a certain “Marcian F. Rossi,” who had emigrated from Italy to America in the nineteenth century and pos- sessed those maps. Rossi claimed that the maps and other documents had come down directly through his family line, and he traced a lineage that went all the way back to the thirteenth century. A Complex History Marcian Rossi’s particular claims are found in a letter, dated 14 January 1948, which he had sent to Bagrow.2 This was already some years after Rossi had begun, in 1933, to engage the Library of Congress, lending that institution some of the documents and sending photostat copies (an early form of photocopies) of others. Part of the letter is quoted by Bagrow in his article: Marco Polo entrusted the maps to Admiral Rujerius Sanseverinus who had graduated the Nautical School at Amalfi . A number of cen- turies later his descendant Ruberth Sanseverinus married Elisabeth Feltro Della Rovere, Duchess of Urbino. In the year 1539 Julius Cesare 1 INTRODUCTION de Rossi, Count of Bergeto, married Maddalena Feltro Della Rovere Sanseverinus to whom the Tenure of Cajiate was assigned; his grand-son Joseph de Rossi became Duke of Serre; this tenure was held till 1744, when it was transferred to the Duchy of Casale to [of?] Joseph de Rossi; his younger brother Antonio de Rossi was the father of Marciano de Rossi, my great grand-father.3 When I read this passage, the fi rst mystery was this “Admiral Rujerius Sanseverinus”: who was this admiral and what was his relationship to Marco Polo? Some investigations led to the conclusion that Marcian Rossi might have been referring to Ruggero Sanseverino, who was also known as “il Grande Ammiraglio” Ruggero (or “Ruggiero”), who died in 1305 and was also known as “Ruggero di Lauria,” from the town of Lauria, where he was born. We also know that he was admiral of Sicily and Aragona, but did he in fact receive maps from Marco Polo? There is no record of such a transaction, but the two men were con- temporaries; Marco Polo returned from his trip to the east in 1295 and lived for many years after that. Several of the other claims that Marcian Rossi makes in his letter also seem to stand up to modern research. The “Ruberth Sanseverinus” he mentions seems to be Roberto Sanseverino (d. 1487/1488), and that fi gure indeed married Elisabetta (da) Montefel- tro (d. Rome, 1503), who was the illegitimate daughter of the famous Federico, Duke of Urbino. The “Julius Cesare de Rossi” mentioned in the letter is probably Giulio Cesare de Rossi, who was assassinated in 1554. After Giulio Cesare de Rossi, the lineage becomes more diffi cult to trace. There was, as Marcian Rossi claims in his letter, a “Joseph de Rossi” (i.e., Giuseppe de Rossi), who indeed held the title of “Secondo duca di Casal di Principe.” But the letter still led to a number of ques- tions, and, of course, there were the maps and other documents them- selves, which presented many puzzles. I had read the article on what are now known as the “Marco Polo Maps” or the “Rossi Collection” when I was still a graduate student, as part of my general thesis research into the history of old maps and cartographic texts. It was only some eight years later, in the summer of 1999, that I looked at the article again, in the process of going through some old materials after moving back home from overseas. As I glanced through the article that second time, I began to wonder where these maps were and considered how diffi cult it might be to track them down after half a century. The article intrigued me because the con- nection between Marco Polo and maps has always been very uncertain, and here was a whole collection of them. I was also intrigued because no one seemed to have followed up on the case. 2 INTRODUCTION A number of telephone calls to libraries and municipal archives led to Marcian Rossi’s son, Louis A. Rossi, and then to Louis’s daughter Bev- erly Pendergraft (née Rossi), and fi nally to her son, Jeffrey R. Pender- graft. When I contacted him, he was rather surprised that someone had gone to the trouble to track him down but immediately engaged me in a discussion of the maps, asking what my interest was. It turned out that he actually had quite a number of materials in this Rossi Col- lection—there were maps and related texts in the collection, but also many pieces unrelated to Marco Polo, including old deeds, wills, and so forth, which also merit future study.
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