Rustichello of Pisa(1300 — 1322)
Rustichello of Pisa
république de Venise
7 min read
An Italian writer of the 13th century, Rustichello of Pisa is best known for writing down the account of Marco Polo's travels while sharing a cell with him in Genoa. His work, known under the title 'The Book of Marvels', is one of the most important documents on medieval Asia.
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Around 1298: imprisoned in Genoa with Marco Polo after the Battle of Curzola
- 1298–1299: wrote 'The Description of the World' (Book of Marvels) from Marco Polo's dictation
- Presumed author of several chivalric romances in Old French before his collaboration with Marco Polo
- His text was written in Franco-Venetian, the literary language of the era
Works & Achievements
An account of Marco Polo's travels through Central Asia, China, India, and Persia, written by Rustichello in Old French from the stories dictated by the Venetian traveler while they shared a cell in Genoa. The most comprehensive work ever written on medieval Asia, it profoundly shaped European cartography and inspired the great explorers, including Christopher Columbus, who owned an annotated copy.
A collection of chivalric romances in Old French featuring Knights of the Round Table such as Tristan, Palamedes, and Guiron le Courtois. These works showcase the stylistic mastery that Rustichello would later put to use in narrating Marco Polo's adventures.
Anecdotes
In 1284, the Pisan fleet was crushed by the Genoese at the Battle of Meloria. Rustichello of Pisa was among the thousands of prisoners taken to Genoa, where he would be held for many years. This defeat marked the final decline of Pisa as a Mediterranean maritime power.
Around 1298, another illustrious prisoner arrived in the Genoese jails: Marco Polo, captured after the Battle of Curzola against Venice. The two men shared a cell, and Rustichello, already an experienced novelist, immediately grasped the extraordinary value of the travel stories his companion told him.
Rustichello deliberately chose to write Marco Polo's account not in Italian, but in Old French, the language of courtly romances and chivalry. This was no casual choice: French was then the prestige literary language, ensuring a far wider readership across educated Europe.
Before meeting Marco Polo, Rustichello was already known as a writer of Arthurian romances, retelling the adventures of Tristan, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table. It was thus a professional writer, well versed in shaping epic narratives, who gave literary form to the Venetian's travels.
The original manuscript of the Book of Marvels was copied and translated into many languages as early as the fourteenth century. More than 140 manuscript copies are known today, testament to the work's spectacular success. Paradoxically, Rustichello remains far less famous than Marco Polo, whose essential pen he nonetheless was.
Primary Sources
Lords, Emperors and Kings, Dukes and Marquises, Counts, Knights and Burgesses, and all people desirous of knowing the diversities of the races of mankind and the diversities of the regions of the world, take this book and have it read to you.
And know that since Our Lord God created Adam our first father until this day, neither Christian nor Saracen, Tartar nor Indian, nor any man of any generation, explored as much of the world as did Messer Marco Polo.
Rustichello assembles and rewrites in Old French several Arthurian romances featuring Tristan, Lancelot, and Palamedes, establishing his reputation as a novelist before his imprisonment.
Key Places
Rustichello's hometown and a major Italian maritime power of the Middle Ages, rival to Genoa and Venice. Pisa's defeat by Genoa in 1284 was the unlikely starting point of Rustichello's literary adventure.
The city where Rustichello was imprisoned after the Battle of Meloria, and where he shared his cell with Marco Polo from 1298 onwards. It was in this Genoese prison that the *Book of the Marvels of the World* was written.
The maritime site where the decisive battle between Pisa and Genoa took place in 1284, during which Rustichello was taken prisoner. Paradoxically, this painful event led him toward his greatest literary destiny.
A Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea where the 1298 battle took place in which Marco Polo was captured by the Genoese — an event that would lead to his fateful meeting with Rustichello in the prisons of Genoa.
