01-Where Did Marco Polo Come From 馬可波羅究竟來自哪裡
Croatia. 答案是克羅埃西亞。
Marco Polo was born Marko Pili? in Korcula, Dalmatia, in 1254, then a protectorate of Venice.
馬可.波羅出生於克羅埃西亞的達爾馬提亞（當時是克羅埃西亞共和國所在地的一個島，歷史上亦曾為獨立王國，19世紀成奧匈帝國的一部分)，後成為威尼斯的保護國，其名字出生時的拼寫為Marko Pili?。
We shall probably never know whether he really went to the Far East as a seventeen-year-old with his merchant uncles or if he simply recorded the tales of Silk Road traders who stopped off at their Black Sea trading post.
事實上，我們早已無從驗證，他究竟是否如其本人所言，在17歲時跟隨經商的叔叔們到達過遠東，亦或僅僅是記錄了那些經過黑海驛站的絲路商人們的沿途見聞。
What is certain is that his famous book of travels was largely the work of a romance writer called Rustichello da Pisa with whom he shared a cell after being captured by the Genoans in 1296. Polo dictated it; Rustichello wrote it in French, a language Polo didn』t speak.
可以肯定的是，他那些著名的遊記原本是一個名叫"比薩的魯斯蒂謙"的浪漫文學作家的作品。1296年魯斯蒂謙被熱那亞人俘虜，與馬可波羅在獄中相遇並共享一室。出獄後馬可波羅對這些故事加以改編並據為己有。其實，它們原本是魯斯蒂謙用法語寫的，而馬可波羅甚至不懂法語。
Rustichello da Pisa
The result, which appeared in 1306, was designed to entertain, and it became a best-seller in the era before printing. As an accurate history its status is less secure. 1306年《馬可波羅遊記》面世，並成為印刷時代之前最暢銷的書籍。它的本意是為了娛樂大眾，其歷史真實性並不可靠。
Its original title was Il Milione – 『the Million』 – for reasons that are now obscure, although it quickly became nicknamed 『the million lies』, and Polo – now a rich and successful merchant – was known as 『Mr Million』. It was probably just a catchy thirteenth-century version of a title like 『Wonder Book of Wonder」. 「No original manuscripts survive.
書的原名叫「Il Milione」， 相當於英文中的"the Million』"(一百萬)，究其原因至今已不可考。但面世不久即被讀者們昵稱為"the million lies"(一百萬個謊言)。彼時馬可波羅已經成為一名成功而富有的商人，人們順理成章地將他稱為「百萬先生」。所以總體來說這個書名有點像十三世紀人們口中的「神奇先生奇遇記」。可惜現在並沒有流傳下來的手稿。
Marco Polo is also supposed to have brought pasta and ice cream to Italy.
此外坊間還盛傳是馬可波羅把義大利面和冰淇淋帶入了義大利。
In fact, pasta was known in Arab countries in the ninth century and dried macaroni is mentioned in Genoa in 1279, twenty-five years before Polo claimed to have returned. According to the food historian Alan Davidson, the myth itself only dates back as far as 1929 when it was mentioned in an American pasta-trade journal.
而事實上，9世紀時義大利面已經在阿拉伯國家盛行，1279年干通心粉即在熱那亞一帶的文獻中有被提及，比馬可波羅宣稱返回地中海的時間早了整整25年。根據食物歷史學家Alan Davidson的說法，這一謬傳僅始於1929年的一本美國出版的關於意麵貿易的期刊。
Ice cream may well be a Chinese invention but it seems unlikely to have been introduced to the West by Polo, as it doesn』t get mentioned again until the middle of the seventeenth century.
冰淇淋也可能是中國人的發明而不是馬可波羅帶來的。因為在西方直到17世紀中期它才又被人們重新提起。
