Giacinto Placido Zurla Di Marco Polo e degli altri viaggiatori veneziani più illustri dissertazioni del p. ab. d. Placido Zurla con appendice sulle antiche mappe idro-geografiche lavorate in Venezia, Venice, Tipi Piccottiani, folio.

Matteo Giro

Printed book, 2 vols. in 1, 333 × 232 mm

This is the first and most complete “modern” publication on the travels of Marco Polo and other important Venetian explorers, like Nicolò and Antonio Zeno. The author, Placido Zurla (Legnago, 1769 – Palermo, 1834), Camaldolese monk and later Cardinal Vicar of Rome, is considered the most important early nineteenth-century scholar of the history of medieval geography. After publishing, in 1806, his in-depth study of Fra Mauro’s famous map of the world, he began to focus on the biographies and travels of the first Venetian explorers, about whom he published numerous books. 
Of these, the most authoritative, according to historians, is the edition exhibited here, which is accompanied by three detailed maps created by the same author: Mappamondo per uso dei viaggi di Marco Polo e di altri veneziani, Abbozzo della mappa dei viaggi di Marco Polo nella sala dello scudo del Palazzo Ducale di Venezia, and Carta de navegar de Nicolo et Antonio Zeni furono in Tramontana. This copy is from the library of Giovanni Vacca (1872-1953), an Italian mathematician and expert sinologist.

Bibliography: G. Marinelli, Scritti Minori, (Florence: 1908), p. 432; D. Olivieri, Il Milione secondo il testo della Crusca reintegrato con gli altri codici italiani, (Bari: 1912), p. 273.