11-06-2025, 02:07 AM
Also re the "Chinese theory":
The choice of an alphabetic (rather than syllabic) script, written left to right, makes it almost certain that the Author was an European. The analysis of castle and dress drawings by Koen and others makes it almost certain that the Scribe was from Northern Italy. There have been probably hundreds of Europeans who visited East Asia in that epoch; Marco Polo was only the best known one, by no means the only one. Only a few of those have been recorded by history. I recall that another Venetian merchant spent a few years in Myanmar (Burma) buying gemstones to sell in Europe. Another one visited Malaysia and Indonesia in the 1500s. And Rafal surely must know about Gaspar da Gama...
The choice of an alphabetic (rather than syllabic) script, written left to right, makes it almost certain that the Author was an European. The analysis of castle and dress drawings by Koen and others makes it almost certain that the Scribe was from Northern Italy. There have been probably hundreds of Europeans who visited East Asia in that epoch; Marco Polo was only the best known one, by no means the only one. Only a few of those have been recorded by history. I recall that another Venetian merchant spent a few years in Myanmar (Burma) buying gemstones to sell in Europe. Another one visited Malaysia and Indonesia in the 1500s. And Rafal surely must know about Gaspar da Gama...