ROME: On January 9, 1324, the Venetian traveller, merchant and writer Marco Polo was preparing for his final journey - to the afterlife that he as a God-fearing Christian was certain existed.
Aged 70, Polo summoned a priest-notary to his home in Venice to record his words in Latin on a sheepskin measuring about 67 x 27 cm (26 x 10 inches). Now, a three-year study of the will by scholars and historians offers a fresh glimpse into Polo as well as more support for the commonly-held view that he visited China, which some historians had questioned. Venice’s National Marciana Library, custodian of the will, has co-published a large-format book, which contains a parchment reproduction of the nearly 700-year-old will, including marks left when the sheep was sheared and ink stains on the writing side. The work, called “Ego Marcus Paulo Volo et Ordino” (“I, Marco Polo, Desire and Order”), is intended mostly for collectors, history buffs and libraries. It was produced with Scrinium, a Venetian publishing house. “The last ‘diplomatic transcription’ of the will is 150 years old,” said Stefano Della Zana, Scrinium’s cultural director, referring to the term used by experts who study ancient letters and handwriting to produce modern interpretations. “This was done with the latest scientific techniques and scholarly standards of philology, so previous errors have been corrected,” he said.
Orban’s Fidesz remains the most popular party in Hungary
Azerbaijan has been demanding the villages’ return as a precondition for a peace deal after more than three decades...
The Republican Party and the Trump campaign said in a statement that they plan to recruit an army of poll watchers
All three suffered some frostbite to their cheeks, despite wearing heated masks
Sunak sought to appeal to core Conservative voters by warning the current welfare bill was fiscally unsustainable
The inquiry published its report in 2010, finding that some soldiers had knowingly put forward false accounts