all the texts some time in 1295.[22] We have related Ramusio's interesting tradition, like a bit out of the Arabian Nights, of the reception that the Travellers met with from their relations, and of the means that they took to establish their position with those relations, and with Venetian society.[23] Of the relations, Marco the Elder had probably been long dead;[24] Maffeo the brother of our Marco was alive, and we hear also of a cousin (consanguineus) Felice Polo, and his wife Fiordelisa, without being able to fix their precise position in the family. We know also that Nicolo, who died before the end of the century, left behind him two illegitimate sons, Stefano and Zannino. It is not unlikely that these were born from some connection entered into during the long residence of the Polos in Cathay, though naturally their presence in the travelling company is not commemorated in Marco's Prologue.[25] [1] Zurla, I. 42, quoting a MS. entitled Petrus Ciera S. R. E. Card, de Origine Venetorum et de Civitate Venetiarum. Cicogna says he could not find this MS. as it had been carried to England; and then breaks into a diatribe against foreigners who purchase and carry away such treasures, "not to make a serious study of them, but for mere vainglory ... or in order to write books contradicting the very MSS. that they have bought, and with that dishonesty and untruth which are so notorious!" (IV. 227.) [2] Campidoglio Veneto of Cappellari (MS. in St. Mark's Lib.), quoting "the Venetian Annals of Giulio Faroldi." [3] The Genealogies of Marco Barbaro specify 1033 as the year of the migration to Venice; on what authority does not appear (MS. copy in Museo Civico at Venice). 67 [4] Cappellari, u.s., and Barbaro. In the same century we find (1125, 1195) indications of Polos at Torcello, and of others (1160) at Equileo, and (1179, 1206) Lido Maggiore; in 1154 a Marco Polo of Rialto. Contemporary with these is a family of Polos (1139, 1183, 1193, 1201) at Chioggia (Documents and Lists of Documents from various Archives at Venice). [5] See Appendix C, Nos. 4, 5, and 16. It was supposed that an autograph of Marco as member of the Great Council had been discovered, but this proves to be a mistake, as will be explained further on (see p. 74, note). In those days the demarcation between Patrician and non-Patrician at Venice, where all classes shared in commerce, all were (generally speaking) of one race, and where there were neither castles, domains, nor trains of horsemen, formed no wide gulf. Still it is interesting to establish the verity of the old tradition of Marco's technical nobility. [6] Marco's seniority rests only on the assertion of Ramusio, who also calls Maffeo older than Nicolo. But in Marco the Elder's Will these two are always (3 times) specified as "Nicolaus et Matheus." [7] This seems implied in the Elder Marco's Will (1280): "Item de bonis quae me habere contingunt de fraterna Compagnia a suprascriptis Nicolao et Matheo Paulo,"
etc. [8] In his Will he terms himself "Ego Marcus Polo quondam de Constantinopoli." [9] There is no real ground for doubt as to this. All the extant MSS. agree in making Marco fifteen years old when his father returned to Venice in 1269. [10] Baldelli and Lazari say that the Bern MS. specifies 30th April; but this is a mistake. [11] Pipino's version runs: "Invenit Dominus Nicolaus Paulus uxorem suam esse de functam, quae in recessu suo fuit praegnans. Invenitque filium, Marcum nomine, qui jam annos xv. habebat aetatis, qui post discessum ipsius de Venetiis natus fuerat de uxore sua praefata." To this Ramusio adds the further particular that the mother died in giving birth to Mark. The interpolation is older even than Pipino's version, for we find in the rude Latin published by the Societe de Geographie "quam cum Venetiis primo recessit praegnantem dimiserat." But the statement is certainly an interpolation, for it does not exist in any of the older texts; nor have we any good reason for believing that it was an authorised interpolation. I suspect it to have been introduced to harmonise with an erroneous date for the commencement of the travels of the two brothers. Lazari prints: "Messer Nicolo trovo che la sua donna era morta, e n'era rimasto un fanciullo di dodici anni per nome Marco, che il padre non avea veduto mai, perche non era ancor nato quando egli parti." These words have no equivalent in the French Texts, but are taken from one of the Italian MSS. in the Magliabecchian Library, and are I suspect also interpolated. The dodici is pure error (see p. 21 infra). [12] The last view is in substance, I find, suggested by Cicogna (ii. 389). The matter is of some interest, because in the Will of the younger Maffeo, which is extant, he makes a bequest to his uncle (Avun-culus) Jordan Trevisan. This seems an indication that his mother's name may have been Trevisan. The same Maffeo had a daughter Fiordelisa. And Marco the Elder, in his Will (1280), appoints as his executors, during the absence of his brothers, the same Jordan Trevisan and his own sister-in-law Fiordelisa ("Jordanum Trivisanum de confinio S. Antonini: et Flordelisam cognatam meam"). Hence I conjecture that this cognata Fiordelisa (Trevisan?) was the wife of the absent Nicolo, and the mother of Maffeo. In that case of course Maffeo and Marco were the sons of different mothers. With reference to the above suggestion of Nicolo's second marriage in 1269 there is a curious variation in a fragmentary Venetian Polo in the Barberini Library at Rome. It runs, in the passage corresponding to the latter part of ch. ix. of Prologue: "i qual do fratelli steteno do anni in Veniezia aspettando la elletion de nuovo Papa, nel qual tempo Mess. Nicolo si tolse moier et si la laso graveda." I believe, however, that it is only a careless misrendering of Pipino's statement about Marco's birth. [13] [Major Sykes, in his remarkable book on Persia, ch. xxiii. pp. 262-263, does not share Sir Henry Yule's opinion regarding this itinerary, and he writes: "To return to our travellers, who started on their second great journey in 1271, Sir Henry Yule, in his introduction,[A] makes them travel via Sivas to Mosul and Baghdad, and thence by sea to Hormuz, and this is the itinerary shown on his sketch map. This view I am unwilling to accept for more than one reason. In the first place, if, with Colonel Yule, we suppose that Ser Marco visited Baghdad, is it not unlikely that he should term the River Volga the Tigris,[B] and yet leave the river of Baghdad nameless? It may be urged 68 that Marco believed the legend of the reappearance of the Volga in Kurdistan, but yet, if the text be read with care and the character of the traveller be taken into account, this error is scarcely explicable in any other way, than that he was never there. "Again, he gives no description of the striking buildings of Baudas, as he terms it, but this is nothing to the inaccuracy of his supposed onward journey. To quote the text, 'A very great river flows through the city,... and merchants descend some eighteen days from Baudas, and then come to a certain city called Kisi,[C] where they enter the Sea of India.' Surely Marco, had he travelled down the Persian Gulf, would never have given this description of the route, which is so untrue as to point to the conclusion that it was vague information given by some merchant whom he met in the course of his wanderings. "Finally, apart from the fact that Baghdad, since its fall, was rather off the main caravan route, Marco so evidently travels east from Yezd and thence south to Hormuz, that unless his journey be described backwards, which is highly improbable, it is only possible to arrive at one conclusion, namely, that the Venetians entered Persia near Tabriz, and travelled to Sultania, Kashan, and Yezd. Thence they proceeded to Kerman and Hormuz, where, probably fearing the sea voyage, owing to the manifest unseaworthiness of the ships, which he describes as 'wretched affairs,' the Khorasan route was finally adopted. Hormuz, in this case, was not visited again until the return from China, when it seems probable that the same route was retraced to Tabriz, where their charge, the Lady Kokachin, 'moult bele dame et avenant,' was married to Ghazan Khan, the son of her fiance Arghun. It remains to add that Sir Henry Yule may have finally accepted this view in part, as in the plate showing Probable View of Marco Polo's own Geography,[D] the itinerary is not shown as running to Baghdad." I may be allowed to answer that when Marco Polo started for the East, Baghdad was not rather off the main caravan route. The fall of Baghdad was not immediately followed by its decay, and we have proof of its prosperity at the beginning of the 14th century. Tauris had not yet the importance it had reached when the Polos visited it on their return journey. We have the will of the Venetian Pietro Viglioni, dated from Tauris, 10th December, 1264 (Archiv. Veneto, xxvi. 161-165), which shows that he was but a pioneer. It was only under Arghun Khan (1284-1291) that Tauris became the great market for foreign, especially Genoese, merchants, as Marco Polo remarks on his return journey; with Ghazan and the new city built by that prince, Tauris reached a very high degree of prosperity, and was then really the chief emporium on the route from Europe to Persia and the far East. Sir Henry Yule had not changed his views, and if in the plate showing Probable View of Marco Polo's own Geography, the itinerary is not shown as running to Baghdad, it is mere neglect on the part of the draughtsman.--H. C.] [A] Page 19. [B] Vide Yule, vol. i. p. 5. It is noticeable that John of Pian de Carpine, who travelled 1245 to 1247, names it correctly. [C] The modern name is Keis, an island lying off Linga. [D] Vol. i. p. 110 (Introduction). [14] It is stated by Neumann that this most estimable traveller once intended to have devoted a special work to
