Volume 1

A history of Babylonia and Assyria / [R.W. Rogers] ; rev., largely rewritten, and illustrated.

  • Robert William Rogers
Date:
[1915], ©1915
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of Babylonia and Assyria / [R.W. Rogers] ; rev., largely rewritten, and illustrated. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    40/764 (page 10)
    ^^man of little refinement’’^ and, though pos¬ sessed of a desire to wander and see strange sights, cared little for the intellectual or spiritual meaning of great places. It is an oft-recurring statement with him that he found good ^Vic¬ tuals,” and with that his simple soul was con¬ tent. He evidently did not know what place the ancient ruins marked, and that he cared at all does not appear. So simple is his word that men have even doubted whether he ever saw the ruins with his own eyes; though there is no real reason to doubt that he did. But even though he saw little and said less, his narrative was almost a classic before the invention of printing, and was copied frequently, as the nu¬ merous manuscripts still in existence show.^ Not very long after the invention of printing his story found expression in type. Then it became 1 This is the judgment of Colonel Yule [ih. i, p. 8], and everything seems to me to bear it out. 2 Cordier enumerates seventy-nine as still existing in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, etc See for biographical and critical material: Les Voyages en Asie au XIV^ Siecle du Bienheureux Fr^re Odoric de Pordenone Religieux de Saint-Frangois, publics avec une introduction et des notes par Henri Cordier. Paris, 1891. The narrative of Odoricus was first published in 1513 under the title, ^‘Odorichus de rebus incognitis, Pesaro [per Girolamo Soncino], 1513, in 4.” Only one copy of this extraordinarily rare book is known to exist, and that is in the Reale Biblioteca Palatina de Parme, and I have not seen it. It is described with facsimiles in Cordier, pp. cxvii-cxxiii. A second edition appeared in 1528, at Paris, and the third reprinting was in Ramusio, Navigationi et Viaggi, ii, Venetia, 1583, pp. 245-253. This beautiful edition I have seen. The title of the section is “Viaggio del Beato Odorico da Vdine, dell’ ordine de’ frati Minori, Delle usanze, costumi, & nature, di diverse nationi & genti del Mondo, & del maritirio di quattro frati dell’ordine predetto, qual patirono tra gl’Infedeli.”