sculptured arches and cross, Signor Casoni, who gave a good deal of consideration to the subject, believed to be a relic of the old Polo House. But the tower (which Pauthier's view does show) is now entirely modernized.* Other remains of Byzantine sculpture, which are probably fragments of the decoration of the same mansion, are found imbedded in the walls of neighbouring houses. It is impossible to determine anything further as to the form or extent of the house of the time of the Polos, but some slight idea of its appearance about the year 1500 may be seen in the extract (fig. A) which we give from the famous pictorial map of Venice attributed erroneously to Albert Dürer. The state of the buildings in the last century is shown in (fig. B) an extract from the fine Map of Ughi; and their present condition in one (fig. C) reduced from the Modern Official Map of the Municipality. In the year 1827 the Abate Zenier caused a Tablet to be put up between the Corte Sabbionera and the Theatre, with this inscription: AEDES PROXIMA THALIAE CVLTVI MODO ADDICTA Recent corroboration as to the traditional site of the Casa Polo. 24a. I believe that of late years some doubts have been thrown on the tradition of the site indicated as that of the Casa Polo, though I am not aware of the grounds of such doubts. But a document recently discovered at Venice by Signor Barozzi, one of a series relating to the testamentary estate of Marco Polo, goes far to confirm the tradition. This is the copy of a technical definition of two pieces of house property adjoining the property of Marco Polo and his brother Stephen, which were sold to Marco Polo by his wife Donata ‡ in June 1321. Though the definition is not decisive, from the rarity of topographical re * Casoni's only doubt was whether the Corte del Millioni was what is now the Sabbionera, or the interior area of the theatre. The latter seems most probable. Our Frontispiece to this volume shows the archway in the Corte Sabbionera, and also the decorations of the soffit. † See Ruskin, iii. 320. Sig. Barozzi writes: " Among us, contracts between husband and wife are and were very common, and recognized by law. The wife sells to the husband property not included in dowry, or that she may have inherited, just as any third person might." ferences and absence of points of the compass, the description of Donata's tenements as standing on the Rio (presumably that of S. Giovanni Grisostomo) on one side, opening by certain porticoes and stairs on the other to the Court and common alley leading to the Church of S. Giovanni Grisostomo, and abutting in two places on the CA' POLO the property of her husband and Stefano, will apply perfectly to a building occupying the western portion of the area on which now stands the Theatre, and perhaps forming the western side of a Court of which Casa Polo formed the other three sides.* We know nothing more of Polo till we find him appearing a year or two later in rapid succession as the Captain of a Venetian Galley, as a prisoner of war, and as an author. V. DIGRESSION CONCERNING THE WAR-GALLEYS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN STATES IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 25. And before entering on this new phase of the Traveller's biography it may not be without interest that we say something regarding the equipment of those galleys which are so prominent in the medieval history of the ment of the Mediterranean.t Arrange Rowers in Medieval Galleys: a to every Eschewing that "Serbonian Bog, where armies separate oar whole have sunk" of Books and Commentators, the man. theory of the classification of the Biremes and Triremes of the Ancients, we can at least assert on secure grounds that in medieval armament, up to the middle of the 16th century or thereabouts, the characteristic distinction of galleys of different calibres, so far as such differences existed, was based on the number of rowers that sat on one bench pulling each his separate oar, but through one portella or rowlock-port. And to the * See Appendix C, No. 16. Large extracts were given in the first edition (App. C. No. 10), but I have not thought it necessary to print them again. ↑ I regret not to have had access to Jal's learned memoirs (Archéologie Navale, Paris, 1839) whilst writing this section, nor since, except for a hasty look at his Essay on the difficult subject of the oar arrangements. I see that he rejects so great a number of oars as I deduce from the statements of Sanudo and others, and that he regards a large number of the rowers as supplementary. It seems the more desirable to elucidate this, because writers on medieval subjects so accomplished as Buchon and Capmany have (it would seem) entirely misconceived the matter, assuming that all the men on one bench pulled at one oar. classes of galleys so distinguished the Italians, of the later Middle Age at least, did certainly apply, rightly or wrongly, the classical terms of Bireme, Trireme, and Quinquereme, in the sense of galleys having two men and two oars to a bench, three men and three oars to a bench, and five men and five oars to a bench.* That this was the medieval arrangement is very certain from the details afforded by Marino Sanudo the Elder, confirmed by later writers and by works of art. Previous to 1290, Sanudo tells us, almost all the galleys that went to the Levant had but two oars and men to a bench; but as it had been found that three oars and men to a bench could be employed with great advantage, after that date nearly all galleys adopted this arrangement, which was called ai Terzaruolit Moreover experiments made by the Venetians in 1316 had shown that four rowers to a bench could be employed still more advantageously. And where the galleys could be used on inland waters, and could be made more bulky, Sanudo would even recommend five to a bench, or have gangs of rowers on two decks with either three or four men to the bench on each deck. Change of System in the 16th century. 26. This system of grouping the oars, and putting only one man to an oar, continued down to the 16th century, during the first half of which came in the more modern system of using great oars, equally spaced, and requiring from four to seven men each to ply them, in the manner which endured till late in the last century, when galleys became altogether obsolete. Captain Pantero Pantera, the author of a work on Naval Tactics * See Coronelli, Atlante Veneto, I. 139, 140. Marino Sanudo the Elder, though not using the term trireme, says it was well understood from ancient authors that the Romans employed their rowers three to a bench (p. 59). "Ad terzarolos" (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, p. 57). The Catalan Worthy, Ramon de Muntaner, indeed constantly denounces the practice of manning all the galleys with terzaruoli, or tersols, as his term is. But his reason is that these thirdsmen were taken from the oar when crossbowmen were wanted, to act in that capacity, and as such they were good for nothing; the crossbowmen, he insists, should be men specially enlisted for that service and kept to that. He would have some 10 or 20 per cent. only of the fleet built very light and manned in threes. He does not seem to have contemplated oars three-banked, and crossbowmen besides, as Sanudo does (see below; and Muntaner, pp. 288, 323, 525, &c.). In Sanudo we have a glimpse worth noting of the word soldiers advancing towards the modern sense; he expresses a strong preference for soldati (viz. paid soldiers) over crusaders (viz. volunteers), p. 74. (1616), says he had heard, from veterans who had commanded galleys equipped in the antiquated fashion, that three men to a bench, with separate oars, answered better than three men to one great oar, but four men to one great oar (he says) were certainly more efficient than four men with separate oars. The new-fashioned great oars, he tells us, were styled Remi di Scaloccio, the old grouped oars Remi a Zenzile,-terms the etymology of which I cannot explain.* It may be doubted whether the four-banked and fivebanked galleys, of which Marino Sanudo speaks, really then came into practical use. A great five-banked galley on this system, built in 1529 in the Venice Arsenal by Vettor Fausto, was the subject of so much talk and excitement, that it must evidently have been something quite new and unheard of.† So late as 1567 indeed the King of Spain built at Barcelona a galley of thirty-six benches to the side, and seven men to the bench, with a separate oar to each in the old fashion. But it proved a failure.‡ Down to the introduction of the great oars the usual system appears to have been three oars to a bench for the larger galleys, and two oars for lighter ones. The fuste or lighter galleys of the Venetians, even to about the middle of the 16th century, had their oars in pairs from the stern to the mast, and single oars only from the mast forward. § 27. Returning then to the three-banked and two-banked galleys of the latter part of the 13th century, the number of benches on each side seems to have run from twenty- Some details five to twenty-eight, at least as I interpret Sanudo's of the 13th calculations. The 100-oared vessels often mentioned Galleys. (e.g. by Muntaner, p. 419) were probably two-banked vessels. with twenty-five benches to a side. century The galleys were very narrow, only 15 feet in beam. * L'Armata Navale, Roma, 1616, pp. 150-151. † See a work to which I am indebted for a good deal of light and information, the Engineer Giovanni Casoni's Essay "Dei Navigli Poliremi usati nella Marina dagli Antichi Veneziani,” in “Esercitazioni dell' Atenco Veneto, vol. ii. p. 338. This great Quinquereme, as it was styled, is stated to have been struck by a firearrow, and blown up, in January 1570. Pantera, p. 22. § Lazarus Bayfius de Re Navali Veterum, in Gronovii Thesaurus, Ven. 1737, vol. xi. p. 581. This writer also speaks of the Quinquereme mentioned above (p. 577). | Marinus Sanutius, p. 65. |