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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
56 INTRODUCTION
'11
hostile that it was only too natural in 1298 to find a Pisan in
Rusticiano, the gaol of Genoa. An unhappy multitude of such
perhaps a prisoners had been carried thither fourteen years before,
prisoner from
Meloria. 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.*
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
illustrious House of Doria, the Scipios of Genoa as they have
been called, Uberto, the elder brother of Lamba. Lamba him-
self 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 25o, most of them on board one great galley
bearing the name of the family patron, St. Matthew. t
The Pisans, more than one-fourth inferior in strength, came
out boldly, and the battle was fought off the Porto Pisano, in
fact close in front of Leghorn, where a lighthouse on a remark-
able arched basement still marks the islet of M ELORIA, whence
the battle got its name. The day was the 6th of August, the
feast of St. Sixtus, a day memorable in the Pisan Fasti for
several great victories. But on this occasion the defeat of Pisa
was overwhelming. Forty of their galleys were taken or sunk,
and upwards of go0o prisoners carried to Genoa. In fact so
vast a sweep was made of the flower of Pisan manhood that it
was a common saying then : " Cze vuol veder Pisa, vada a
* B. 1Jlarangone, Croniclze delta C. di Pisa, in h'eruna Ital. Script. of 7 artini, Florence, 1748, i. 563 ; _Dal Borg o, Dissect. sopra [Istoria Pisana, ii. 287.
t The list of the whole number is preserved in the Doria archives, and has been published by Sign. Jacopo D'Oria. Many of the Baptismal names are curious, and show how far sponsors wandered from the Church Calendar. Assan, Aiton, Turco, Soldan seem to come of the constant interest in the East. Alaone, a name which remained in the family for several generations, I had thought certainly borrowed from the fierce conqueror of the Khalif (infra, p. 63). But as one Alaone, present at this battle, had a son also there, he must surely have been christened before the fame of Hulaku could have reached Genoa. (See La Chiesa di S. Matteo, pp. 250, sew.)
In documents of the kingdom of Jerusalem there are names still more anomalous,
e.g.., Gualterius Bafumeth, Joanncs iZahomet. (See Cod. Dipl. del Sac. Mild. Ord.
Gerosol. I. 2-3, 62.)
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