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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
; r:
•
~o INTRODUCTION
terest, because it is the only one yet discovered which exhibits
Marco under the aspect of a practical trader. It is the judgment
of the Court of Requests upon a suit brought by the NOBLE
MARCO POLO of the parish of S. Giovanni Grisostomo against
one Paulo Girardo of S. Apollinare. It appears that Marco had
entrusted to the latter as a commission agent for sale, on an
agreement for half profits, a pound and a half of musk, priced at
six lire of grossi (about 221. los. in value of silver) the pound.
Girardo had sold half-a-pound at that rate, and the remaining
pound which he brought back was deficient of a saggio, or, one-
sixth of an ounce, but he had accounted for neither the sale nor
the deficiency. Hence Marco sues him for three lire of Grossi,
the price of the half-pound sold, and for twenty grossi as the
value of the saggio. And the Judges cast the defendant in the
amount with costs, and the penalty of imprisonment in the
common gaol of Venice if the amounts were not paid within a
suitable term.*
Again in May, 1323, probably within a year of his death,
Ser Marco appears (perhaps only by attorney), before the Doge
and his judicial examiners, to obtain a decision respecting a
question touching the rights to certain stairs and porticoes in
contact with his own house property, and that obtained from his
wife, in S. Giovanni Grisostomo. To this allusion has been
already made (supra, p. 3r).
47. We catch sight of our Traveller only once more. It is
Marco on the 9th of January, 1324 ; he is labouring with
Polo's Last disease, under which he is sinking day by day ; and he
Death. has sent for Giovanni Giustiniani, Priest of S. Proculo
and Notary, to make his Last Will and Testament. It runs
thus :
" IN THE NAME OF THE ETERNAL GOD AMEN
" In the year from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 1323, on the
* The document is given in Appendix C, No. 5. It was found by Comm.
Barozzi, the Director of the Museo Civico, when he had most kindly accompanied me
to aid in the search for certain other documents in the archives of the Casa di
Ricovero, or Poor House of Venice. These archives contain a great mass of testa-
mentary and other documents, which probably have come into that singular depository
in connection with bequests to public charities.
The document next mentioned was found in as strange a site, viz., the Casa degli
Esposti or Foundling Hospital, which possesses similar muniments. This also I owe
to Comm. Barozzi, who had noted it some years before, when commencing an
arrangement of the archives of the Institution.
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