393-394.)
Money on such occasions was frequently raised by what was called an Estimo or Facion, which was a force loan levied on the citizens in proportion to their estimated wealth; and for which they were entitled to interest from the State.
[17] Several of the Italian chroniclers, as Ferreto of Vicenza and Navagiero, whom Muratori has followed in his "Annals," say the battle was fought on the 8th September, the so-called Birthday of the Madonna. But the inscription on the Church of St. Matthew at Genoa, cited further on, says the 7th, and with this agree both Stella and the Genoese poet. For the latter, though not specifying the day of the month, says it was on a Sunday:--
"Lo di de Domenga era Passa prima en l'ora bona Stormezam fin provo nona Con bataio forte e fera."
Now the 7th September, 1298, fell on a Sunday.
[18] Ma li pensavam grande error
Che in fuga se fussem tuti metui
Che de si lonzi eram vegnui
Per cerchali a casa lor.
[19] "Note here that the Genoese generally, commonly, and by nature, are the most covetous of Men, and the Love of Gain spurs them to every Crime. Yet are they deemed also the most valiant Men in the World. Such an one was Lampa, of that very Doria fam-ily, a man of an high Courage truly. For when he was engaged in a Sea-Fight against the Venetians, and was standing on the Poop of his Galley, his Son, fighting valiantly at the Forecastle, was shot by an Arrow in the Breast, and fell wounded to the Death; a Mishap whereat his Comrades were sorely shaken, and Fear came upon the whole Ship's Company. But Lampa, hot with the Spirit of Battle, and more mindful of his Country's Service and his own Glory than of his Son, ran forward to the spot, loftily rebuked the agitated Crowd, and ordered his Son's Body to be cast into the Deep, telling them for their Comfort that the Land could never have afforded his Boy a nobler Tomb. And then, renewing the Fight more fiercely than ever, he achieved the Victory." (Benvenuto of Imola, in Comment. on Dante. in Muratori, Antiq. i. 1146.)
("Yet like an English General will I die,
And all the Ocean make my spacious Grave; Women and Cowards on the Land may lie,
The Sea's the Tomb that's proper for the Brave!"
--Annus Mirabilis.)
[20] The particulars of the battle are gathered from Ferretus Vicentinus, in Murat. ix. 985 seqq.; And. Dandulo, in xii. 407-408; Navagiero, in xxiii. 1009-1010; and the Genoese Poem as before.
[21] 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. [22] For the funeral, a MS. of Cibo Recco quoted by Jacopo Doria in La Chiesa di San Matteo descritta, etc., 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."
[23] 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 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.)
85
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 vi-vos 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 His-toriae 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 Francois de la Bibliotheque 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 Monumenta, 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 La Glaza, which I think there can be no doubt is also intended for Ayas (sometimes called Giazza), a place which in fact is called Glaza in three of the MSS. of which various readings are given in the edition of the Societe de Geographie (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 Hethum has put it under 1293. (See
Langlois, Mem. sur les Relations de Genes avec la Petite-Armenie.)
VII. RUSTICIANO OR RUSTICHELLO OF PISA, MARCO POLO'S FELLOW-PRISONER AT GENOA, THE SCRIBE WHO WROTE DOWN THE TRAVELS.
38. We have now to say something of that Rusticiano to whom all who value Polo's book are so much indebted. [Sidenote: Rusticiano, perhaps a prisoner from Meloria.]
The relations between Genoa and Pisa had long been so hostile that it was only too natural in 1298 to find a Pisan in the gaol of Genoa. An unhappy multitude of such prisoners had been carried thither fourteen years before, and the survivors still lingered there in vastly dwindled numbers. In the summer of 1284 was fought the battle from which Pisa had to date the commencement of her long decay. In July of that year the Pisans, at a time when the Genoese had no fleet in their own immediate waters, had advanced