Rustichello appears to have been a native of
Pisa. His first known work, the French text known as the
Roman de Roi Artus or, simply, the
Compilation, appears to derive from books in the possession of
Edward I of England when he passed through Italy on his way to fighting in the
Eighth Crusade in 1270 to 1274. While written in French, it is the first known romance by an Italian author to address the Arthurian legend. The
Compilation contains an interpolation of the
Palamedes, a now-fragmentary prose account of Arthur's
Saracen knight
Palamedes, and a history of the
Round Table. It was later divided into two sections, named after their principal protagonists,
Meliadus (
Tristan's father) and
Guiron le Courtois. Both remained popular for hundreds of years, and influenced many later works written in French as well as in Spanish, Italian, and even Greek.), he told his tales of travel to Rustichello. Together they created the book known as
The Travels of Marco Polo. ==Notes==