The Voyages of Marco Polo. Марко Поло

honour of that famous singer, and this it still bears.[3]

      [In 1881, the year of the Venice International Geographical Congress, a Tablet was put up on the Theatre with the following inscription:—

      QVI FURONO LE CASE DI MARCO POLO CHE VIAGGIÒ LE PIÙ LONTANE REGIONI DELL' ASIA E LE DESCRISSE

      PER DECRETO DEL COMUNE MDCCCLXXXI].

      There is still to be seen on the north side of the Court an arched doorway in Italo-Byzantine style, richly sculptured with scrolls, disks, and symbolical animals, and on the wall above the doorway is a cross similarly ornamented.[4] The style and the decorations are those which were usual in Venice in the 13th century. The arch opens into a passage from which a similar doorway at the other end, also retaining some scantier relics of decoration, leads to the entrance of the Malibran Theatre. Over the archway in the Corte Sabbionera the building rises into a kind of tower. This, as well as the 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.[5]

      [Illustration: The site of the CA' POLO.

       Fig. A. From the Diner Map AD 1500.

       Fig. B. From Map by Ludovico Ughi A.D. 1729 Scale 1 to 2500.

       Fig. C. From Recent Map. Scale 1 to 1315.]

      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.[6] 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.

      [Coming from the Church of S. G. Grisostomo to enter the calle del Teatro on the left and the passage (Sottoportico) leading to the Corte del Milione, one has in front of him a building with a door of the epoch of the Renaissance; it was the office of the provveditori of silk; on the architrave are engraved the words:

      PROVISORES SERICI

      and below, above the door, is the Tablet which] in the year 1827 the Abate Zenier caused to be put up with this inscription:—

      AEDES PROXIMA THALIAE CVLTVI MODO ADDICTA MARCI POLO P. V. ITINERVM FAMA PRAECLARI JAM HABITATIO FVIT.

      [Illustration: Entrance to the Corte del Milione Venice]

      [Sidenote: 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 Comm. 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[7] in June 1321. Though the definition is not decisive, from the rarity of topographical references 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.[8]

      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.

      [1] Marco Barbaro's story related at p. 25 speaks of the Ca' Million as built by the travellers.

      From a list of parchments existing in the archives of the Casa di Ricovero, or Great Poor House, at Venice, Comm. Berchet obtained the following indication:—

      "No. 94. Marco Galetti invests Marco Polo S. of Nicolo with the ownership of his possessions (beni) in S. Giovanni Grisostomo; 10 September, 1319; drawn up by the Notary Nicolo, priest of S. Canciano."

      This document would perhaps have thrown light on the matter, but unfortunately recent search by several parties has failed to trace it. [The document has been discovered since: see vol. ii., Calendar, No. 6.—H. C.]

      [2]—"Sua casa che era posta nel confin di S. Giovanni Chrisostomo, che hor fà l'anno s'abbrugiò totalmente, con gran danno di molti." (Doglioní, Hist. Venetiana, Ven. 1598, pp. 161–162.)

      "1596. 7 Nov. Senato (Arsenal … ix c. 159 t).

      "Essendo conveniente usar qualche ricognizione a quelli della maestranza del-l'Arsenal nostro, che prontamente sono concorsi all' incendio occorso ultimamente a S. Zuane Grizostomo nelli stabeli detti di CA' MILION dove per la relazion fatta nell collegio nostro dalli patroni di esso Arsenal hanno nell' estinguere il foco prestato ogni buon servitio. … "—(Comm. by Cav. Cecchetti through Comm. Berchet.)

      [3] See a paper by G. C. (the Engineer Giovanni Casoni) in Teatro Emeronitio Almanacco par l'Anno 1835.

      [4] This Cross is engraved by Mr. Ruskin in vol. ii. of the Stones of Venice: see p. 139, and Pl. xi. Fig. 4.

      [5] 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.

      One Illustration of this volume, p. 1, shows the archway in the Corte Sabbionera, and also the decorations of the soffit.

      [6] See Ruskin, iii. 320.

      [7] Comm. 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."

      [8] See Appendix C, No. 16.

      V. DIGRESSION CONCERNING THE WAR-GALLEYS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN STATES IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

       Table of Contents

      [Sidenote: Arrangement of the Rowers in Mediaeval Galleys: a separate oar to every man.]

      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 mediaeval history of the Mediterranean.[1]

      Eschewing that "Serbonian Bog, where armies whole have sunk" of Books and Commentators, the theory of the classification of the Biremes and Triremes of the Ancients, we can at least assert on secure grounds that in mediaeval 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.[2] And to the 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.[3]

      That this was the mediaeval arrangement is very certain from the details afforded by Marino Sanudo the Elder,