One passage in Ramusio seems to bear a reference to the date at which these interpolated notes were amalgamated with the original.  In the chapter on Samarkand (i. p. 191) the conversion of the Prince Chagatai is said in the old texts to have occurred “not a great while ago” (il ne a encore grament de tens).  But in Ramusio the supposed event is fixed at “one hundred and twenty-five years since.”  This number could not have been uttered with reference to 1298, the year of the dictation at Genoa, nor to any year of Polo’s own life.  Hence it is probable that the original note contained a date or definite term which was altered by the compiler to suit the date of his own compilation, some time in the 14th century.]

[18] In the first edition of Ramusio the preface contained the following
    passage, which is omitted from the succeeding editions; but as even
    the first edition was issued after Ramusio’s own death, I do not see
    that any stress can be laid on this: 

“A copy of the Book of Marco Polo, as it was originally written in Latin, marvellously old, and perhaps directly copied from the original as it came from M. Marco’s own hand, has been often consulted by me and compared with that which we now publish, having been lent me by a nobleman of this city, belonging to the Ca’ Ghisi.”

[19] For a moment I thought I had been lucky enough to light on a part of
    the missing original of Ramusio in the Barberini Library at Rome. 
    A fragment of a Venetian version in that library (No. 56 in our list
    of MSS.) bore on the fly-leaf the title “Alcuni primi capi del Libro
    di S. Marco Polo, copiati dall esemplare manoscritto di PAOLO
    RANNUSIO.” But it proved to be of no importance.  One brief passage of
    those which have been thought peculiar to Ramusio; viz., the reference
    to the Martyrdom of St. Blaize at Sebaste (see p. 43 of this volume),
    is found also in the Geographic Latin.

It was pointed out by Lazari, that another passage (vol. i. p. 60) of those otherwise peculiar to Ramusio, is found in a somewhat abridged Latin version in a MS. which belonged to the late eminent antiquary Emanuel Cicogna. (See List in Appendix F, No. 35.) This fact induced me when at Venice in 1870 to examine the MS. throughout, and, though I could give little time to it, the result was very curious.

I find that this MS. contains, not one only, but at least seven of the passages otherwise peculiar to Ramusio, and must have been one of the elements that went to the formation of his text.  Yet of his more important interpolations, such as the chapter on Ahmad’s oppressions and the additional matter on the City of Kinsay, there is no indication.  The seven passages alluded to are as follows; the words corresponding to Ramusian peculiarities are in italics, the references are to my own volumes.

    1.  In the chapter on Georgia: