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'Messer Marco, so runs Ramusio's account of the tradition which lingered in Venice in his day, 'finding himself in this position, and witnessing the general eagerness to hear all about Cathay and the Great Khan, which indeed compelled him daily to repeat his story till he was weary, was advised to put the matter in writing, so he found means to get a letter written to his father in Venice, in which he desired the latter to send those notes and memoranda which he had brought home with him.
Ramusio's preface, containing this account, and also the story of how Rusticiano came to write the book at Marco Polo's dictation at Genoa, is translated in Yule, op. cit., I, Introd., pp. 4-8. He mentions these in Marco Polo, op. cit., pp. 136, 138, 344. Yule, op. cit., I, Introd., p. 79. Paulin Paris, quoted ibid., Introd., p. 61. Ibid., Introd., pp. 67-73.
At the same time, not wishing to confine ourselves to Pigafetta's narrative entirely, we have compared and completed it with that of Maximilian Transylvain, secretary to Charles V., of which there is an Italian translation in Ramusio's valuable collection.
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