Book Chapter

Gabriel de Magalhães e la difesa di Marco Polo nella Nouvelle Relation de la Chine

  • Davor Antonucci

When missionaries arrived in China in the mid-16th century, the Ming Empire was unknown to Europeans and very different from the Cathay described by Marco Polo. The Venetian's text was well known to the missionaries who read it and used it once they landed on Chinese shores: there is no text written by missionaries in China that does not contain references to Marco Polo. What were they looking for within its pages? Did they trust Marco Polo's account, or did they consider it unreliable? In his work Nouvelle Relation de la Chine (Paris, 1688), the Portuguese Jesuit Gabriel de Magalhães lists five pieces of evidence that, in his opinion, prove that Cathay and Mangi are two parts of the same empire, thereby demonstrating that Marco Polo did indeed travel to China.

  • Keywords:
  • Marco Polo,
  • Cathay,
  • Jesuits,
  • Gabriel de Magalhães,
  • China,
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Davor Antonucci

Sapienza University of Rome, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-1322-2062

  1. Antonucci, Davor. 2019. “I gesuiti e Marco Polo: «un autore degno di fiducia».” In La strada per il Catai. Contatti tra Oriente e Occidente al tempo di Marco Polo, a cura di Alvise Andreose, 189-203. Milano: Angelo Guerini e Associati.
  2. Antonucci, Davor. 2024. “Marco Polo nella letteratura missionaria dei secoli XVI-XIX.” In Marco Polo. Storia e mito di un viaggio e di un libro, a cura di Samuela Simion, ed Eugenio Burgio, 355-71. Roma: Carocci.
  3. Atwood, Cristopher. 2016. “Marco Polo’s Sino-Mongolian Toponyms, with Special Attention to the Transcription of the Character zhou 州.” In Make Boluo Yangzhou sichou zhi lu马可波罗,扬州, 丝绸之路, edited by Xu Zhongwen 徐忠文, and Rong Xinjiang 荣新江, 57-86. Beijing: Peking University Press.
  4. Bertuccioli, Giuliano. 2002. Martino Martini S.J. Opera Omnia, vol. III, Novus Atlas Sinensis. Trento: Università degli Studi di Trento.
  5. Clüver, Philipp. 1624. Introductio In Universam Geographiam, tam Veterem quam Novam. Leiden: Ex officina Elzeviriana.
  6. D’Elia, Pasquale M. 1942-1949. Fonti Ricciane: Storia dell’introduzione del cristianesimo in Cina, 3 voll. Roma: Libreria dello Stato.
  7. Golvers, Noël. 2010. “F. Verbiest, G. Magalhães, T. Pereyra and the others. The Jesuit Xitang College in Peking (1670-1688) as an extra-ordinary professional milieu.” In Tomás Pereira, S.J. (1646-1708), Life, Work and World, edited by Luís Filipe Barreto, 277-98. Lisbon: Centro Científico e Cultural de Macau, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.
  8. Golvers, Noël. 2012-2015. Libraries of Western Learning for China. Circulation of Western Books between Europe and China in the Jesuit Mission (ca. 16500 - ca. 1750), vol. I: Logistics of Book Acquisition and Circulation; vol. II: Formation of Jesuit Libraries; vol. III: Of Books and Readers. Leuven: Ferdinand Verbiest Institute.
  9. Haw, Stephen G. 2006. Marco Polo in China. A Venetian in the Realm of Khubilai Khan. London: Routledge.
  10. Intorcetta, Prospero. 1672. Compendiosa Narratione dello Stato della Missione Cinese, cominciando dall’Anno 1581 fino al 1669. Roma: per Francesco Tizzoni.
  11. Magalhães, Gabriel de. 1688. Nouvelle relation de la Chine, contenant la description des particularitez les plus considerables de ce grand empire. Composée en l’année 1668. par le R.P. Gabriel de Magaillans, de la Compagnie de Jesus, mißionnaire apostolique. Et traduite du portugais en françois par le Sr B. Paris: chez Claude Barbin au Palais sur le second Perron de la Sainte Chapelle.
  12. Martini, Martino S.J. 1655. Novus Atlas Sinensis. Amsterdam: J. Bleau.
  13. Mungello, David E. 1989. Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
  14. Pelliot, Paul. 1963. Notes on Marco Polo, vol. II. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.
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  • Publication Year: 2025
  • Pages: 59-67

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  • Publication Year: 2025

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Gabriel de Magalhães e la difesa di Marco Polo nella Nouvelle Relation de la Chine

Authors

Davor Antonucci

Language

Italian

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0883-3.10

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2025

Copyright Information

© 2025 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY-SA 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Il Milione nel tempo tra Asia ed Europa: Marco Polo nelle letterature medievali e contemporanee

Book Subtitle

Atti del Convegno Internazionale (Siena, 7–8 novembre 2024) e del Seminario “700 anni di Marco Polo” (Firenze, 11 dicembre 2024)

Editors

Paola Mocella

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

178

Publication Year

2025

Copyright Information

© 2025 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY-SA 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0883-3

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0882-6

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0883-3

eISBN (epub)

979-12-215-0884-0

Series Title

ConTesti medievali. Studi, ricerche e fonti

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