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Secondary sourcePaintingc. 1410-1412

Livre des merveilles

Mazarine Master · c. 1410-1412

A richly illustrated 1410s French manuscript containing Marco Polo's account of Asia alongside other travel and diplomatic texts.

This later French manuscript copy of Polo's book shows how his account of Asia was received by European nobility.

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Illuminated manuscript page with a painted miniature of a medieval walled town with pink towers and a half-timbered tower. Richly decorated borders surround it, with gold leaf, foliage, and a blue-and-gold initial. A rider on a white horse and a group of figures in robes stand in a landscape; a kneeling figure offers something to a robed man. Blue text heading and red and black text columns appear on the page.
Mazarine Master (workshop), Livre des merveilles, c. 1410-1412. Bibliothèque nationale de France.

About this source

What it is

Made in France around 1410-1412 by Parisian workshops including the Mazarine Master, this manuscript brings together several texts about contact between Europe and Asia, among them Marco Polo's account of his journeys. It has 297 folios and 265 miniatures. Its first owner was John the Fearless; it later passed through the libraries of the Duke of Berry, the Armagnac family and French kings, and is now held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Why it matters

This manuscript shows how Marco Polo's text was read and imagined by French nobles more than a century after his journeys. The miniatures, such as one showing local beliefs at a city Polo described, reveal real curiosity about other cultures alongside European fantasy. It demonstrates how Polo's book spread among Europe's elite and shaped their picture of Asia.

Look closer

  • How might artists who never traveled to Asia have imagined the scenes they painted?
  • What does the manuscript's long chain of noble owners tell us about who could access books like this?
  • Where do the images seem to mix European ideas with the Asian places Polo described?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Marco Polo on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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