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