Marco Polo and the «Heresy of Evil» : Encountering Manichaeans in Southeastern China

By integrating recent scholarship on the Devisement dou monde with studies on Manichaeism and the Church of the East in China, this paper revisits one of Marco Polo's most enigmatic narratives: the encounter in Fuzhou involving Marco, his uncle Maffeo, and a secretive religious sect. This episode, documented exclusively in the Latin ‘Zt' manuscript, captures a rare cross-cultural interaction between two Venetian Catholics and a community the Polos identified as Christian, but which modern scholars recognize as Manichaean. This study provides a comprehensive re-evaluation of this episode, deconstructing its layered voices – from the Fuzhou practitioners to the Latin redactors – while incorporating relevant historical and archaeological findings. [Publisher's text]

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