And As It Is The MS.
C, With Its Copy At Bern, That Alone Presents The Certificate Of
Derivation From The Book Given To The Sieur De Cepoy, There Can Be No
Doubt That It Is The True Representative Of That Recension.
[Sidenote: Third; Friar Pipino's Latin.]
58. III. The next Type of Text is that found in Friar Pipino's Latin
version. It is the type of which MSS. are by far the most numerous. In it
condensation and curtailment are carried a good deal further than in Type
II. The work is also divided into three Books. But this division does not
seem to have originated with Pipino, as we find it in the ruder and
perhaps older Latin version of which we have already spoken under Type I.
And we have demonstrated that this ruder Latin is a translation from an
Italian copy. It is probable therefore that an Italian version similarly
divided was the common source of what we call the Geographic Latin and of
Pipino's more condensed version.[9]
Pipino's version appears to have been executed in the later years of
Polo's life.[10] But I can see no ground for the idea entertained by
Baldelli-Boni and Professor Bianconi that it was executed with Polo's
cognizance and retouched by him.
[Sidenote: The Latin of Grynaeus a translation at fifth hand.]
59. The absence of effective publication in the Middle Ages led to a
curious complication of translation and retranslation. Thus the Latin
version published by Grynaeus in the Novus Orbis (Basle, 1532) is
different from Pipino's, and yet clearly traceable to it as a base.
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