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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
RUSTICIEN DE PISE
S7
Genova ! " Many noble ladies of Pisa went in large companies
on foot to Genoa to seek their husbands or kinsmen : And when
they made enquiry of the Keepers of the Prisons, the reply
would be, ` Yesterday there died thirty of them, to-day there
have died forty ; all of whom we have cast into the sea ; and so
it is daily.' "*
A body of prisoners so numerous and important naturally
exerted themselves in the cause of peace, and through their efforts,
after many months of ne-
gotiation, a formal peace was
signed (15th April, 1288)•
But through the influence, as
was alleged, of Count Ugo-
lino (Dante's) who was then
in power at Pisa, the peace
became abortive ; war almost
immediately recommenced,
and the prisoners had no re-
lease.t And, when the 6000
or 7000 Venetians were
thrown into the prisons of
Genoa in October 1298, they
would find there the scanty surviving remnant of the
Pisan Prisoners of Meloria, and would gather from them dismal
forebodings of the fate before them.
.It is a fair conjecture that to that remnant Rusticiano of
Pisa may have belonged.
We have seen Ramusio's representation of the kindness
shown to Marco during his imprisonment by a certain Genoese
gentleman who also assisted him to reduce his travels to writing.
We may be certain that this Genoese gentleman is only a dis-
torted image of Rusticiano, the Pisan prisoner in the gaol of
•
* 117e»zorial. Potestat. Reg ions. in Muratori, `iii. 1162.
t See Frag nz. His/. Pisan. in Muratori, xxiv. 651, seqq. ; and Cafaro, id. vi. 588, 594-595. The cut in the text represents a striking memorial of those Pisan Prisoners, which perhaps still survives, but which at any rate existed last century in a collection at Lucca. It is the seal of the prisoners as a body corporate : SIUILLUM UNIVERSITATIS CARCERATORUM PISANORUM JAN [;E DETENTORUM, and was doubtless used in their negotiations for peace with the Genoese Commissioners. It represents two of the prisoners imploring the Madonna, Patron of the Duomo at Pisa. It is from 11I inni, Osserz'. Stor. sopra Sigilli Antic/1i, etc., Firenze, 1739, toni. xii. The seal is also engraved in Dal Borg o, op. cit. ii. 316.
VOL. I. l
Seal of the Pisan Prisoners.
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