The Voyages of Marco Polo. Марко Поло
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the Virgin in the Church of St. Matthew, on every 8th of September, the Madonna's day, on the eve of which the Battle had been won. To the admiral himself a Palace was decreed. It still stands, opposite the Church of St. Matthew, though it has passed from the possession of the Family. On the striped marble façades, both of the Church and of the Palace, inscriptions of that age, in excellent preservation, still commemorate Lamba's achievement.[23] Malik al Mansúr, the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, as an enemy of Venice, sent a complimentary letter to Doria accompanied by costly presents.[24]
[Illustration: Church of San Matteo, Genoa]
The latter died at Savona 17th October, 1323, a few months before the most illustrious of his prisoners, and his bones were laid in a sarcophagus which may still be seen forming the sill of one of the windows of S. Matteo (on the right as you enter). Over this sarcophagus stood the Bust of Lamba till 1797, when the mob of Genoa, in idiotic imitation of the French proceedings of that age, threw it down. All of Lamba's six sons had fought with him at Meloria. In 1291 one of them, Tedisio, went forth into the Atlantic in company with Ugolino Vivaldi on a voyage of discovery, and never returned. Through Caesar, the youngest, this branch of the Family still survives, bearing the distinctive surname of Lamba-Doria.[25]
As to the treatment of the prisoners, accounts differ; a thing usual in such cases. The Genoese Poet asserts that the hearts of his countrymen were touched, and that the captives were treated with compassionate courtesy. Navagiero the Venetian, on the other hand, declares that most of them died of hunger.[26]
[Sidenote: Marco Polo in prison dictates his book to Rusticiano of Pisa.
Release of Venetian prisoners.]
36. Howsoever they may have been treated, here was Marco Polo one of those many thousand prisoners in Genoa; and here, before long, he appears to have made acquaintance with a man of literary propensities, whose destiny had brought him into the like plight, by name RUSTICIANO or RUSTICHELLO of Pisa. It was this person perhaps who persuaded the Traveller to defer no longer the reduction to writing of his notable experiences; but in any case it was he who wrote down those experiences at Marco's dictation; it is he therefore to whom we owe the preservation of this record, and possibly even that of the Traveller's very memory. This makes the Genoese imprisonment so important an episode in Polo's biography.
To Rusticiano we shall presently recur. But let us first bring to a conclusion what may be gathered as to the duration of Polo's imprisonment.
It does not appear whether Pope Boniface made any new effort for accommodation between the Republics; but other Italian princes did interpose, and Matteo Visconti, Captain-General of Milan, styling himself Vicar-General of the Holy Roman Empire in Lombardy, was accepted as Mediator, along with the community of Milan. Ambassadors from both States presented themselves at that city, and on the 25th May, 1299, they signed the terms of a Peace.
These terms were perfectly honourable to Venice, being absolutely equal and reciprocal; from which one is apt to conclude that the damage to the City of the Sea was rather to her pride than to her power; the success of Genoa, in fact, having been followed up by no systematic attack upon Venetian commerce.[27] Among the terms was the mutual release of prisoners on a day to be fixed by Visconti after the completion of all formalities. This day is not recorded, but as the Treaty was ratified by the Doge of Venice on the 1st July, and the latest extant document connected with the formalities appears to be dated 18th July, we may believe that before the end of August Marco Polo was restored to the family mansion in S. Giovanni Grisostomo.
[Sidenote: Grounds on which the story of Marco Polo's capture at Curzola rests.]
37. Something further requires to be said before quitting this event in our Traveller's life. For we confess that a critical reader may have some justification in asking what evidence there is that Marco Polo ever fought at Curzola, and ever was carried a prisoner to Genoa from that unfortunate action?
A learned Frenchman, whom we shall have to quote freely in the immediately ensuing pages, does not venture to be more precise in reference to the meeting of Polo and Rusticiano than to say of the latter: "In 1298, being in durance in the Prison of Genoa, he there became acquainted with Marco Polo, whom the Genoese had deprived of his liberty from motives equally unknown."[28]
To those who have no relish for biographies that round the meagre skeleton of authentic facts with a plump padding of what might have been, this sentence of Paulin Paris is quite refreshing in its stern limitation to positive knowledge. And certainly no contemporary authority has yet been found for the capture of our Traveller at Curzola. Still I think that the fact is beyond reasonable doubt.
Ramusio's biographical notices certainly contain many errors of detail; and some, such as the many years' interval which he sets between the Battle of Curzola and Marco's return, are errors which a very little trouble would have enabled him to eschew. But still it does seem reasonable to believe that the main fact of Marco's command of a galley at Curzola, and capture there, was derived from a genuine tradition, if not from documents.
Let us then turn to the words which close Rusticiano's preamble (see post, p. 2):—"Lequel (Messire Marc) puis demorant en le charthre de Jene, fist retraire toutes cestes chouses a Messire Rustacians de Pise que en celle meissme charthre estoit, au tens qu'il avoit 1298 anz que Jezu eut vesqui." These words are at least thoroughly consistent with Marco's capture at Curzola, as regards both the position in which they present him, and the year in which he is thus presented.
There is however another piece of evidence, though it is curiously indirect.
The Dominican Friar Jacopo of Acqui was a contemporary of Polo's, and was the author of a somewhat obscure Chronicle called Imago Mundi.[29] Now this Chronicle does contain mention of Marco's capture in action by the Genoese, but attributes it to a different action from Curzola, and one fought at a time when Polo could not have been present. The passage runs as follows in a manuscript of the Ambrosian Library, according to an extract given by Baldelli Boni:—
"In the year of Christ MCCLXXXXVI, in the time of Pope Boniface VI., of whom we have spoken above, a battle was fought in Arminia, at the place called Layaz, between xv. galleys of Genoese merchants and xxv. of Venetian merchants; and after a great fight the galleys of the Venetians were beaten, and (the crews) all slain or taken; and among them was taken Messer Marco the Venetian, who was in company with those merchants, and who was called Milono, which is as much as to say 'a thousand thousand pounds,' for so goes the phrase in Venice. So this Messer Marco Milono the Venetian, with the other Venetian prisoners, is carried off to the prison of Genoa, and there kept for a long time. This Messer Marco was a long time with his father and uncle in Tartary, and he there saw many things, and made much wealth, and also learned many things, for he was a man of ability. And so, being in prison at Genoa, he made a Book concerning the great wonders of the World, i.e., concerning such of them as he had seen. And what he told in the Book was not as much as he had really seen, because of the tongues of detractors, who, being ready to impose their own lies on others, are over hasty to set down as lies what they in their perversity disbelieve, or do not understand. And because there are many great and strange things in that Book, which are reckoned past all credence, he was asked by his friends on his death-bed to correct the Book by removing everything that went beyond the facts. To which his reply was that he had not told one-half of what he had really seen!"[30]
This statement regarding the capture of Marco at the Battle of Ayas is one which cannot be true, for we know that he did not reach Venice till 1295, travelling from Persia by way of Trebizond and the Bosphorus, whilst the Battle of Ayas of which we have purposely given some detail, was fought in May, 1294. The date MCCLXXXXVI assigned to it in the preceding extract has given rise to some unprofitable discussion. Could that date be accepted, no doubt it would enable us also to accept this, the sole statement from the Traveller's own age of the circumstances which brought him into a Genoese prison; it would enable us to place that imprisonment within a few months of his return from the East, and to extend its duration to three years, points which would thus accord better with the general tenor of Ramusio's tradition than the capture of Curzola. But the matter is not open to such a solution. The date of the Battle of Ayas is not more doubtful than that of the Battle of the Nile. It is clearly stated by several independent