The Devisement dou monde is one of the most successful works of medieval Romance literature, with 144 manuscripts surviving to the present day. The scholarly debate over its textual tradition, which began in the nineteenth century, provides valuable insights into the development of philology in Italy. The identification of the key stages in the text’s transmission is due to Luigi Foscolo Benedetto (1886–1966), who published the first—and to date, only—critical edition of this travel account in 1928. The systematic classification of the manuscripts enabled him to demonstrate that the original version, written by Marco Polo in collaboration with Rustichello da Pisa during their imprisonment in Genoa in 1298, was composed in Franco-Italian. Benedetto’s edition is rightly regarded as one of the great achievements of twentieth-century Italian philology. His recensio is based on the assumption of a bipartite tradition. The branch containing the majority of surviving manuscripts (referred to as “A”) would transmit a version lacking certain original details, which would appear to be preserved in the other branch, designated “B.” The foundation of Benedetto’s 1928 edition has been widely accepted by scholars. However, over the past fifty years, researchers have increasingly questioned this framework, allowing for a more refined analysis of the relationships among manuscripts in the highest positions of the stemma codicum than Benedetto had achieved. Most notably, his initial assumption that authorial variants did not exist has been disproven. Current scholarship suggests that the version transmitted by the “A” branch reflects the form of the text produced in Genoa in 1298, while the additional material in the so-called “B group” was likely added by Marco Polo after his return to Venice.
La tradition manuscrite du Devisement dou monde de Marco Polo et les études de critique textuelle en Italie au XXe siècle [The manuscript tradition of Marco Polo’s Devisement dou monde and studies of textual criticism in Italy in the 20th century]
Andreose A.
2025-01-01
Abstract
The Devisement dou monde is one of the most successful works of medieval Romance literature, with 144 manuscripts surviving to the present day. The scholarly debate over its textual tradition, which began in the nineteenth century, provides valuable insights into the development of philology in Italy. The identification of the key stages in the text’s transmission is due to Luigi Foscolo Benedetto (1886–1966), who published the first—and to date, only—critical edition of this travel account in 1928. The systematic classification of the manuscripts enabled him to demonstrate that the original version, written by Marco Polo in collaboration with Rustichello da Pisa during their imprisonment in Genoa in 1298, was composed in Franco-Italian. Benedetto’s edition is rightly regarded as one of the great achievements of twentieth-century Italian philology. His recensio is based on the assumption of a bipartite tradition. The branch containing the majority of surviving manuscripts (referred to as “A”) would transmit a version lacking certain original details, which would appear to be preserved in the other branch, designated “B.” The foundation of Benedetto’s 1928 edition has been widely accepted by scholars. However, over the past fifty years, researchers have increasingly questioned this framework, allowing for a more refined analysis of the relationships among manuscripts in the highest positions of the stemma codicum than Benedetto had achieved. Most notably, his initial assumption that authorial variants did not exist has been disproven. Current scholarship suggests that the version transmitted by the “A” branch reflects the form of the text produced in Genoa in 1298, while the additional material in the so-called “B group” was likely added by Marco Polo after his return to Venice.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
