[意大利]马可·波罗/Marco Polo
马可·波罗（1254-1324），出生于意大利威尼斯城的一个商人家庭，公元1275年随父亲和叔父到达中国，居留了17年，1295年返回故乡。不久，马可·波罗参加了对热那亚城的海战，兵败被俘入狱。他在狱中口述了其在东方的见闻，由同狱难友为之笔录，这就是举世闻名的《马可·波罗游记》。马可·波罗是中世纪的大旅行家，是使西方人了解中国的重要人物之一。他的游记不仅在西方世界产生了重大影响，也是中国和西方，特别是中国和意大利人民友好关系的历史见证。
Upon leaving Va-giu you pass（in the course of three days'journey）many towns, castles, and villages, all of them well inhabited and opulent. At the end of three days you reach the noble and magnificent city of Kin-sai, a name that signifies“the celestial city”。
There are within the city ten principal squares or market-places, besides innumerable shops along the streets. Each side of these squares is half a mile in length, and in front of them is the main street, forty paces in width, and running in a direct line from one extremity of the city to the other. There is an abundant quantity of game of all kinds, such as roebucks, stags, fallow deer, hares, and rabbits, together with partridges, pheasants, francolins, quails, common fowls, capons, and such numbers of ducks and geese as can scarcely be expressed.
At all seasons there is in the markets a great variety of herbs and fruits, and especially pears of an extraordinary size, weighing ten pounds each, that are white in the inside, like paste, and have a very fragrant smell. There are peaches also, in their season, both of the yellow and the white kind, and of a delicious flavour. From the sea, which is fifteen miles distant, there is daily brought up the river, to the city, a vast quantity of fish;and in the lake also there is abundance, which gives employment at all times to persons whose sole occupation it is to catch them.