Marco Polo's Galley going into action at Curzola.

and ended by dashing his head against a bench.* A Genoese account asserts that a noble funeral was given him after the arrival of the fleet at Genoa, which took place on the evening of the 16th October. It was received with great rejoicing, and the City voted the annual presentation of a pallium of gold brocade to the altar of 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. Malik

Navagiero, u. s.

Dandulo says,

"after a few days he died of grief;" Ferretus, that he was killed in the action and buried at Curzola.

For the funeral, a MS. of Cibo Recco quoted by Jacopo Doria in La chiesa di San Matteo descritta, &c., Genova, 1860, p. 26. For the date of arrival the poem so often quoted :

:

"De Oitover, a zoia, a seze di

Lo nostro ostel, con gran festa
En nostro porto, a or di sesta
Domine De restitui."

S. Matteo was built by Martin Doria in 1125, but pulled down and rebuilt by the family in a slightly different position in 1278. On this occasion is recorded a remarkable anticipation of the feats of American engineering: "As there was an ancient and very fine picture of Christ upon the apse of the Church, it was thought a great pity that so fine a work should be destroyed. And so they contrived an ingenious method by which the apse bodily was transported without

al Mansúr, the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, as an enemy of Venice, sent a complimentary letter to Doria, accompanied by costly presents.*

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 Cæsar, the youngest, this branch of the Family still survives, bearing the distinctive surname of Lamba-Doria.†

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.‡

injury, picture and all, for a distance of 25 ells, and firmly set upon the foundations where it now exists." (Jacopo de Varagine, in Muratori, vol. ix. 36.)

The inscription on S. Matteo regarding the battle is as follows:-" Ad Honorem Dei et Beate Virginis Marie Anno MCCLXXXXVIII Die Dominico VII Septembris iste Angelus captus fuit in Gulfo Venetiarum in Civitate Scursole et ibidem fuit prelium Galearum LXXVI Januensium cum Galeis LXXXXVI Veneciarum. Capte fuerunt LXXXIIII per Nobilem Virum Dominum Lambam Aurie Capitaneum et Armiratum tunc Comunis et Populi Janue cum omnibus existentibus in eisdem, de quibus conduxit Janue homines vivos carceratos VII ecce et Galeas XVIII, reliquas LXVI fecit cumburi in dicto Gulfo Veneciarum. Qui obiit Sagone I. MCCCXXIII." It is not clear to what the Angelus refers.

*Rampoldi, Ann. Musulm. ix. 217.

† Jacopo Doria, p. 280.

Murat. xxiii. 1010. I learn from a Genoese gentleman, through my friend Prof. Henry Giglioli (to whose kindness I owe the transcript of the inscription just given), that a faint tradition exists as to the place of our traveller's imprisonment. It is alleged to have been a massive building, standing between the Grazie and the Mole, and bearing the name of the Malapaga, which is now a barrack for Doganieri, but continued till comparatively recent times to be used as a civil prison. "It is certain," says my informant, "that men of fame in arms who had fallen into the power of the Genoese were imprisoned there, and among others is recorded the name of the Corsican Giudice dalla Rocca and Lord of Cinarca, who died there in 1312;" a date so near that of Marco's imprisonment as to give some interest to the hypothesis, slender as are its grounds. Another Genoese, however, indicates as the scene of Marco's captivity certain old prisons near the Old Arsenal, in a site still known as the Vico degli Schiavi (Celesia, Dante in Liguria, 1865, p. 43).

VOL. I.

h

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, CaptainGeneral 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.*. 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

*The Treaty and some subsidiary documents are printed in the Genoese Liber Jurium, forming a part of the Monumenta Historiae Patriae, published at Turin (see Lib. Jur. II. 344, seqq.). Muratori in his Annals has followed John Villani (bk. viii. ch. 27) in representing the terms as highly unfavourable to Venice. But for this there is no foundation in the documents. And the terms are stated with substantial accuracy in Navagiero (Murat. Scriptt. xxiii. 1011).

end of August Marco Polo was restored to the family mansion in S. Giovanni Grisostomo.

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 ?

Grounds on story of capture at

which the

Marco Polo's

Curzola
rests.

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."

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 M. 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.

* Paulin-Paris, Les Manuscrits François de la Bibliothèque du Roi, ii. 355.