Pelliot, Paul. Notes on Marco Polo, 2 vols. Paris: Imprimerie
Nationale, 1959.
Ross, E. Denison. Marco Polo and His Book. Annual Italian
Lectures of the British Academy: 1934. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1934.
Segre, Cesare, Gabriella Ronchi, and Marisa Miianesi. Avventure
del Milione. Parma: Zara, 1986.
Watanabe, Hiroshi. Marco Polo Bibliography: 1477–1983. Tokyo:
Toyo Bunko, 1986.
Zorzi, Alvise. Vita di Marco Polo Veneziano. Milan: Rusconi, 1982.
Steven Grossvogel
POTTER, DIRC
(ca. 1368/1370–April 30, 1428)
Dutch poet and diplomat. After he fi nished high school
(the “Latin School,”) Potter entered the service of the
count of Holland. Having started as a treasury clerk, he
was, after 1400, promoted to clerk of the court of justice,
bailiff of The Hague, and secretary of the count. As a
diplomat he went on a number of journeys to Rome
(1411–1412). In his spare time he wrote works of litera-
ture: two discourses in prose (after March 1415), Blome
der doechden (Flowers of Virtue), which goes back to
the Italian Fiore di virtù, and Mellibeus, translated from
a French translation of Albertanus of Brescia’s Liber
consolationis; but his principal work is Der minnen loep
(The Course of Love, 1411–1412), a treatise in verse
about love, larded with stories largely taken from the
Bible and from Ovid, in particular from the Heroides.
The work consists of four books (over eleven thousand
lines). Potter distinguishes “foolish,” “good,” “illicit,”
and “licit” love; one book is devoted to each of them.
Potter derived the classifi cation in Books I, III, and IV
from medieval commentaries on Heroides, which dis-
cern in the Heroides amor stultus, illicitus, and licitus.
The “good” love of Book II does not originate from the
Heroides commentaries, but (at least from Potter’s point
of view) it forms a whole with “licit” love, which is the
highest degree of “good” love. It turns out that Potter
knew the complete “medieval Ovid”: Ovid’s works, the
commentaries on these works, and the accessus, i.e., the
medieval introductions to them. Within the tradition of
the “pagan” artes amandi (treatises on the art of love),
Potter created a Christianized ars amatoria. As such
he is highly original: Der minnen loep is unique in the
European context.
Further Reading
Leendertz, Pieter, ed. Der minnen loep, 2 vols. Leiden: du Mortier,
1845–1847.
Overmaat, Bernard G. L. “Mellibeus. Arnhem.” Ph.d. diss.,
University of Nijmegen, 1950.
Schoutens, Stephanus. Dat bouck der bloemen. Hoogstraten: Van
Hoof-Roelans, 1904 [Blome der doechden].
van Buuren, A. M. J. Der minnen loep van Dirc Potter: studie over
een Middelnederlandse ars amandi. Utrecht: HES, 1979.
——. “Dire Potter, a Medieval Ovid,” in Erik Kooper, ed. Medi-
eval Dutch Literature in Its European Context. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 151–167.
van Oostrom, Frits P. Court and Culture: Dutch Literature,
1350–1450. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
Alfons M. J. van BuurenPOWER, LEONEL (ca. 1375/85–1445)
Composer and music theorist, one of the most prolifi c
and infl uential in the fi rst half of the 15th century. The
fi rst reference to Leonel occurs in 1418 in the records
of the household chapel of Thomas duke of Clarence,
where he was probably employed as a specialist musi-
cian rather than as a cleric. Since his name is given
second in the accounts, he may have been one of its most
senior members, recruited perhaps as early as 1411–13.
After Clarence’s death in 1421 Leonel’s movements
become uncertain, though he may have worked in one
of the other English ducal chapels. In 1423 he became
a member of the confraternity of the priory at Christ
Church, Canterbury, but there is no evidence that this
involved any professional duties. That he spent his last
years in Canterbury is confi rmed by a legal document
of 1438 and by records suggesting that from 1439 until
his death he acted as master of the Lady Chapel choir
of the cathedral.
Most of Leonel’s substantial surviving output (over
40 pieces, not counting those with confl icting attri-
butions) is either for the Ordinary of the mass or for
Marian services; secular music and isorhythmic motets
are lacking. This narrow range of genres is, however,
counterbalanced by an unusually wide variety of styles,
much wider than that shown by his younger contem-
porary Dunstable, and his music accurately refl ects the
important technical changes that occurred during his
long career.
Leonel’s earliest surviving music comes mainly from
the Old Hall Manuscript and bears the hallmark of a
skilled and inventive composer fully conversant with
the techniques available at the beginning of the 15th
century; clearly he was profi cient at all levels of elabora-
tion, from austere discant through fl orid melodic writing
to ingenious use of isorhythm. He seems, however, to
have taken a particular delight in rhythmic intricacies
expressed through notational tricks that are esoteric even
by the standards of Old Hall. Some of Leonel’s music
seems to be contrived around numerical relationships; in
this respect he is typical of composers of his time, though
his usage is notably less involved than that of Dunstable.
About this time he and others began to group mass
movements in pairs, an idea that eventually led to the
establishment of the cyclic mass. Only one such cycle
survives with an undisputed attribution to Leonel (built
on the piainsong Alma redemptoris mater), but two more
carry confl icting ascriptions. In this and later musicPOLO, MARCO