[16] [Refer to the edition of Mr. George F. Warner, 1889, for the Roxburghe Club, and to my own paper in the _T’oung Pao_, Vol. II., No. 4, regarding the compilation published under the name of Maundeville. Also _App. L_. 13—H. C.] [17] _L’Ystoire de li Normand_, etc., edited by M. Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 1835, p. v. [18] “_Porce que lengue Frenceise cort parmi le monde, et est la plus delitable à lire et à oir que nule autre, me sui-je entremis de translater l’ancien estoire des Veneciens de Latin en Franceis._” (Archiv. Stor. Ital. viii. 268.) [19] “_Et se aucuns demandoit por quoi cist livres est escriz en Romans, selonc le langage des François, puisque nos somes Ytaliens, je diroie que ce est por. ij. raisons: l’une, car nos somes en France; et l’autre porce que la parleure est plus delitable et plus commune à toutes gens._” (Li Livres dou Tresor, p. 3.) [20] It is, however, not improbable that Rusticiano’s hasty and abbreviated original was extended by a scribe who knew next to nothing of French; otherwise it is hard to account for such forms as _perlinage_ (pelerinage), _peseries_ (espiceries), _proque_ (see vol. ii. p. 370), _oisi_ (G. T. p. 208), _thochere_ (toucher), etc. (See _Bianconi_, 2nd Mem. pp. 30–32.) [21] Polo, Friar Odoric, Nicolo Conti, Ibn Batuta. X. VARIOUS TYPES OF TEXT OF MARCO POLO’S BOOK. [Sidenote: Four Principal Types of Text. First, that of the Geographic, or oldest French.] 55. In treating of the various Texts of Polo’s Book we must necessarily go into some irksome detail. Those Texts that have come down to us may be classified under Four principal Types. I. The First Type is that of the Geographic Text of which we have already said so much. This is found nowhere _complete_ except in the unique MS. of the Paris Library, to which it is stated to have come from the old Library of the French Kings at Blois. But the Italian _Crusca_, and the old Latin version (No. 3195 of the Paris Library) published with the Geographic Text, are evidently derived entirely from it, though both are considerably abridged. It is also demonstrable that neither of these copies has been translated from the other, for each has passages which the other omits, but that both have been taken, the one as a copy more or less loose, the other as a translation, from an intermediate _Italian_ copy.[1] A special difference lies in the fact that the Latin version is divided into three Books, whilst the Crusca has no such division. I shall show in a tabular form the _filiation_ of the texts which these facts seem to demonstrate (see Appendix G). There are other Italian MSS. of this type, some of which show signs of having been derived independently from the French;[2] but I have not been able to examine any of them with the care needful to make specific deductions regarding them. [Sidenote: Second; the remodelled French Text, followed by Pauthier.]