The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano

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 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 cccc 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. [24] _Rampoldi, Ann. Musulm._ ix. 217. [25] _Jacopo Doria_, p. 280. [26] _Murat._ xxiii. 1010. I learn from a Genoese gentleman, through my friend Professor 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.) [Was not the place of Polo’s captivity the basement of the _Palazzo del Capitan del Popolo_, afterwards _Palazzo del Comune al Mare_, where the Customs (_Dogana_) had their office, and from the 15th century the _Casa_ or _Palazzo di S. Giorgio?_—H. C.] [27] 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. Script._ xxiii. 1011.) [28] _Paulin Paris, Les Manuscrits François de la Bibliothèque du Roi_, ii. 355. [29] Though there is no precise information as to the birth or death of this writer, who belonged to a noble family of Lombardy, the Bellingeri, he can be traced with tolerable certainty as in life in 1289, 1320, and 1334. (See the Introduction to his Chronicle in the Turin _Monumentà_, _Scriptores_ III.) [30] There is another MS. of the _Imago Mundi_ at Turin, which has been printed in the _Monumenta_. The passage about Polo in that copy differs widely in wording, is much shorter, and contains no date. But it relates his capture as having taken place at _Là Glazà_, which I think there can be no doubt is also intended for Ayas (sometimes called _Giàzza_), a place which in fact is called _Glaza_ in three of the MSS. of which various readings are given in the edition of the Société de Géographie (p. 535). [31] “_E per meio esse aregordenti De si grande scacho mato Correa mille duxenti Zonto ge novanta e quatro._” The Armenian Prince Hayton or Héthum has put it under 1293. (See _Langlois, Mém. sur les Relations de Gênes avec la Petite-Arménie_.) VII. RUSTICIANO OR RUSTICHELLO OF PISA, MARCO POLO’S FELLOW-PRISONER AT GENOA, THE SCRIBE WHO WROTE DOWN THE TRAVELS.