Volume I Part 28 (1/2)

[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 family, a man of an high Courage truly. For when he was engaged in a Sea-Fight against the Venetians, and was standing on the p.o.o.p 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 s.h.i.+p'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 n.o.bler 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 s.p.a.cious 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 rest.i.tui.”

[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 antic.i.p.ation 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.)

The inscription on S. Matteo regarding the battle is as follows:--”_Ad Honorem Dei et Beate Virginis Marie Anno MCCLx.x.xXVIII Die Dominico VII Septembris iste Angelus captus fuit in Gulfo Venetiarum in Civitate Scursole et ibidem fuit prelium Galearum LXXVI Januensium c.u.m Galeis Lx.x.xXVI Veneciarum. Capte fuerunt Lx.x.xIIII per n.o.bilem Virum Dominum Lambam Aurie Capitaneum et Armiratum tunc Comunis et Populi Janue c.u.m omnibus existentibus in eisdem, de quibus conduxit Janue homines vivos carceratos VII cccc et Galeas XVIII, reliquas LXVI fecit c.u.mburi 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 ma.s.sive 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 a.r.s.enal, 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 bas.e.m.e.nt 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 doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ments. And the terms are stated with substantial accuracy in Navagiero. (_Murat. Script._ xxiii. 1011.)

[28] _Paulin Paris, Les Ma.n.u.scrits 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sage 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 Pet.i.te-Armenie_.)

VII. RUSTICIANO OR RUSTICh.e.l.lO 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 mult.i.tude 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 to the very port of Genoa and shot their defiance into the proud city in the form of silver-headed arrows, and stones belted with scarlet.[1] They had to pay dearly for this insult. The Genoese, recalling their cruisers, speedily mustered a fleet of eighty-eight galleys, which were placed under the command of another of that ill.u.s.trious House of Doria, the Scipios of Genoa as they have been called, Uberto, the elder brother of Lamba. Lamba himself with his six sons, and another brother, was in the fleet, whilst the whole number of Dorias who fought in the ensuing action amounted to 250, most of them on board one great galley bearing the name of the family patron, St. Matthew.[2]