The Voyages of Marco Polo. Марко Поло

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СКАЧАТЬ and flourishing place, the Genoese took and burned.[14] Thus they were engaged when word came that the Venetian fleet was in sight.

      Venice, on first hearing of the Genoese armament, sent Andrea Dandolo with a large force to join and supersede Maffeo Quirini, who was already cruising with a squadron in the Ionian sea; and, on receiving further information of the strength of the hostile expedition, the Signory hastily equipped thirty-two more galleys in Chioggia and the ports of Dalmatia, and despatched them to join Dandolo, making the whole number under his command up to something like ninety-five. Recent drafts had apparently told heavily upon the Venetian sources of enlistment, and it is stated that many of the complements were made up of rustics swept in haste from the Euganean hills. To this the Genoese poet seems to allude, alleging that the Venetians, in spite of their haughty language, had to go begging for men and money up and down Lombardy. "Did we do like that, think you?" he adds:—

      "Beat up for aliens? We indeed? When lacked we homeborn Genoese? Search all the seas, no salts like these, For Courage, Seacraft, Wit at need."[15]

      Of one of the Venetian galleys, probably in the fleet which sailed under

       Dandolo's immediate command, went Marco Polo as Sopracomito or Gentleman-Commander.[16]

      [Sidenote: The Fleets come in sight of each other at Curzola.]

      34. It was on the afternoon of Saturday the 6th September that the Genoese saw the Venetian fleet approaching, but, as sunset was not far off, both sides tacitly agreed to defer the engagement.[17]

      The Genoese would appear to have occupied a position near the eastern end of the Island of Curzola, with the Peninsula of Sabbioncello behind them, and Meleda on their left, whilst the Venetians advanced along the south side of Curzola. (See map on p. 50).

      According to Venetian accounts the Genoese were staggered at the sight of the Venetian armaments, and sent more than once to seek terms, offering finally to surrender galleys and munitions of war, if the crews were allowed to depart. This is an improbable story, and that of the Genoese ballad seems more like truth. Doria, it says, held a council of his captains in the evening at which they all voted for attack, whilst the Venetians, with that overweening sense of superiority which at this time is reflected in their own annals as distinctly as in those of their enemies, kept scout-vessels out to watch that the Genoese fleet, which they looked on as already their own, did not steal away in the darkness. A vain imagination, says the poet:—

      "Blind error of vainglorious men

       To dream that we should seek to flee

       After those weary leagues of sea

       Crossed, but to hunt them in their den!"[18]

      [Sidenote: The Venetians defeated, and Marco Polo a prisoner.]

      35. The battle began early on Sunday and lasted till the afternoon. The Venetians had the wind in their favour, but the morning sun in their eyes. They made the attack, and with great impetuosity, capturing ten Genoese galleys; but they pressed on too wildly, and some of their vessels ran aground. One of their galleys too, being taken, was cleared of her crew and turned against the Venetians. These incidents caused confusion among the assailants; the Genoese, who had begun to give way, took fresh heart, formed a close column, and advanced boldly through the Venetian line, already in disorder. The sun had begun to decline when there appeared on the Venetian flank the fifteen or sixteen missing galleys of Doria's fleet, and fell upon it with fresh force. This decided the action. The Genoese gained a complete victory, capturing all but a few of the Venetian galleys, and including the flagship with Dandolo. The Genoese themselves lost heavily, especially in the early part of the action, and Lamba Doria's eldest son Octavian is said to have fallen on board his father's vessel.[19] The number of prisoners taken was over 7000, and among these was Marco Polo.[20]

      [Illustration: Marco Polo's Galley going into action at Curzola.

      "il sembloit que la galie volast, par les nageurs qui la contreingnoient aux avirons, et sembloit que foudre cheist des ciex, au bruit que les pennoncians menoient, et que les nacaues les tabours et les cors sarrazinnois menoient, qui estoient en sa galie"

      (Joinville, vide ante, p. 40)]

      [Illustration: Scene of the Battle of Curzola.]

      The prisoners, even of the highest rank, appear to have been chained. Dandolo, in despair at his defeat, and at the prospect of being carried captive into Genoa, refused food, and ended by dashing his head against a bench.[21] A Genoese account asserts that a noble funeral was given him after the arrival of the fleet at Genoa, which took place on the evening of the 16th October.[22] It was received with great rejoicing, and the City voted the annual presentation of a pallium of gold brocade to the altar of the Virgin in the Church of St. Matthew, on every 8th of September, the Madonna's day, on the eve of which the Battle had been won. To the admiral himself a Palace was decreed. It still stands, opposite the Church of St. Matthew, though it has passed from the possession of the Family. On the striped marble façades, both of the Church and of the Palace, inscriptions of that age, in excellent preservation, still commemorate Lamba's achievement.[23] Malik al Mansúr, the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, as an enemy of Venice, sent a complimentary letter to Doria accompanied by costly presents.[24]

      [Illustration: Church of San Matteo, Genoa]

      The latter died at Savona 17th October, 1323, a few months before the most illustrious of his prisoners, and his bones were laid in a sarcophagus which may still be seen forming the sill of one of the windows of S. Matteo (on the right as you enter). Over this sarcophagus stood the Bust of Lamba till 1797, when the mob of Genoa, in idiotic imitation of the French proceedings of that age, threw it down. All of Lamba's six sons had fought with him at Meloria. In 1291 one of them, Tedisio, went forth into the Atlantic in company with Ugolino Vivaldi on a voyage of discovery, and never returned. Through Caesar, the youngest, this branch of the Family still survives, bearing the distinctive surname of Lamba-Doria.[25]

      As to the treatment of the prisoners, accounts differ; a thing usual in such cases. The Genoese Poet asserts that the hearts of his countrymen were touched, and that the captives were treated with compassionate courtesy. Navagiero the Venetian, on the other hand, declares that most of them died of hunger.[26]

      [Sidenote: Marco Polo in prison dictates his book to Rusticiano of Pisa.

       Release of Venetian prisoners.]

      36. Howsoever they may have been treated, here was Marco Polo one of those many thousand prisoners in Genoa; and here, before long, he appears to have made acquaintance with a man of literary propensities, whose destiny had brought him into the like plight, by name RUSTICIANO or RUSTICHELLO of Pisa. It was this person perhaps who persuaded the Traveller to defer no longer the reduction to writing of his notable experiences; but in any case it was he who wrote down those experiences at Marco's dictation; it is he therefore to whom we owe the preservation of this record, and possibly even that of the Traveller's very memory. This makes the Genoese imprisonment so important an episode in Polo's biography.

      To Rusticiano we shall presently recur. But let us first bring to a conclusion what may be gathered as to the duration of Polo's imprisonment.

      It does not appear whether Pope Boniface made any new effort for accommodation between the Republics; but other Italian princes did interpose, and Matteo Visconti, Captain-General of Milan, styling himself Vicar-General of the Holy Roman Empire in Lombardy, was accepted as Mediator, along with the community of Milan. Ambassadors from both States presented themselves at that city, and on the 25th May, 1299, they signed the terms of a Peace.

      These terms were СКАЧАТЬ