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The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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28 INTRODUCTION
mansion ruined from the foundation " it passed into the hands
of one Stefano Vecchia, who sold it in 1678 to Giovanni
Carlo Grimani. He built on the site of the ruins a theatre
which was in its day one of the largest in Italy, and was
called the Theatre of S. Giovanni Grisostomo ; afterwards
the Teatro Emeronitio. When modernized in our own day the
proprietors gave it the name of Malibran, in honour of that
famous singer, and this it still bears.*
[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.- 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.+
Other remains of Byzantine sculpture, which are probably
* See a paper by G. C. (the Engineer Giovanni Casoni) in Teatro Emeronitio, Alnzanacco per l'Anno 1835.
t This Cross is engraved by Mr. Ruskin in vol. ii. of the Stones of Venice : see p. 139, and Pl. xi. Fig. 4.
T. 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,
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