Anything then remaining deficient of
his instalments should be made good by himself or his securities. And
his securities are the Nobles Pietro Morosini and MARCO PAULO
MILION." Under Milion is written in an ancient hand "mortuus."
(See Appendix C, No. 4.)
[7] Humboldt tells this (Examen, II. 221), alleging Jacopo d'Acqui as
authority; and Libri (H. des Sciences Mathematiques, II. 149),
quoting Doglioni, Historia Veneziana. But neither authority bears
out the citations. The story seems really to come from Amoretti's
commentary on the Voyage du Cap. L. F. Maldonado, Plaisance, 1812,
p. 67. Amoretti quotes as authority Pignoria, Degli Dei Antichi.
An odd revival of this old libel was mentioned to me recently by Mr.
George Moffatt. When he was at school it was common among the boys to
express incredulity by the phrase: "Oh, what a Marco Polo!"
[8] Thibault, according to Ducange, was in 1307 named Grand Master of the
Arblasteers of France; and Buchon says his portrait is at Versailles
among the Admirals (No. 1170). Ramon de Muntaner fell in with the
Seigneur de Cepoy in Greece, and speaks of him as "but a Captain of
the Wind, as his Master was King of the Wind." (See Ducange, H. de
l'Empire de Const. sous les Emp. Francois, Venice ed. 1729, pp. 109,
110; Buchon, Chroniques Etrangeres, pp. lv. 467-470.)
[9] The note is not found in the Bodleian MS., which is the third known
one of this precise type.
[10] Messire Jean, the son of Thibault, is mentioned in the accounts of
the latter in the Chambre des Comptes at Paris, as having been with
his Father in Romania. And in 1344 he commanded a confederate
Christian armament sent to check the rising power of the Turks, and
beat a great Turkish fleet in the Greek seas. (Heyd. I. 377;
Buchon, 468.)
[11] 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 testamentary 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.
[12] The Legal Year at Venice began on the 1st of March. And 1324 was 7th
of the Indiction. Hence the date is, according to the modern Calendar,
1324.
