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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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52 INTRODUCTION
36. Howsoever they may have been treated, here was Marco
Polo one of those many thousand prisoners in Genoa ; and here,
Marco Polo before long, he appears to have made acquaintance
in prison
dictates his with a man of literary propensities, whose destiny had
book
Rusticiano brought him into the like plight, by name RUSTICIAN O
of Pisa.
Release of or RUSTICHELLO of Pisa. It was this person perhaps
Venetian
prisoners. 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 perfectly honourable to Venice, being
absolutely equal and reciprocal ; from which one is apt to
conclude that the damage to the City of the Sea was rather to
her pride than to her power ; the success of Genoa, in fact,
having been followed up by no systematic attack upon Vene-
tian commerce.* Among the terms was the mutual release of
prisoners on a day to be fixed by Visconti after the completion
of all formalities. This day is not recorded, but as the Treaty
was ratified by the Doge of Venice on the Ist July, and the latest
extant document connected with the formalities appears to be
dated 18th July, we may believe that before the end of August
* The Treaty and some subsidiary documents are printed in the Genoese Liter
Jurium, forming a part of the MonulneWa Historiae Patriae, published at Turin.
(See Lib. Jur. II. 344, segq.) Muratori in his Annals has followed John Villani
(Bk. VIII. eh. 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. 'oil.)
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