The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps

The curious collection arrived unsolicited at the Library of Congress in 1933, a cross-referenced set of fourteen maps, drawings and chronicles submitted by an Italian-American immigrant and amateur antiquarian named Marcian Rossi. The maps were sketched almost napkin-style on what tests of one showed to be Renaissance-era vellum –the associated texts featured a combination of mostly Italian but also Latin, Arabic and crudely drawn Chinese characters. The materials were said to have passed to the Rossis through the noble descendants by marriage of Admiral Ruggero Sanseverino, who received them directly from Marco Polo.