Note 177 — PRIMO VIAGGIO INTORNO AL MONDO (continued 2)

Cipangu is Japan, while Sumbdit Pradit may be the island of Antilia, called “Septe citade” on Martin Behaim’s globe (Mosto, p. 67, note 5). The locations given by Pigafetta prove that they did not see them, but that he writes only from vague reports. Europe first learned of Japan, near the end of the thirteenth century, through Marco Polo, who had been told in China fabulous tales of the wealth of Zipangu. This word is derived by Marco Polo from the Chinese Dschi-pen-Kuë or Dschi-pon, which the Japanese have transformed into Nippon or Nihon. See Travels of Marco Polo, book iii, ch. ii; and Rein’s Japan, p. 4.