"* I John Giustiniani, Priest of S. Proculo, and Notary, have completed
and authenticated (this testament)."[22]
We do not know, as has been said, how long Marco survived the making of
this will, but we know, from a scanty series of documents commencing in
June of the following year (1325), that he had then been some time
dead.[23]
[Sidenote: Place of Sepulture. Professed Portraits of Polo.]
48. He was buried, no doubt, according to his declared wish, in the Church
of S. Lorenzo; and indeed Sansovino bears testimony to the fact in a
confused notice of our Traveller.[24] But there does not seem to have been
any monument to Marco, though the sarcophagus which had been erected to
his father Nicolo, by his own filial care, existed till near the end of
the 16th century in the porch or corridor leading to the old Church of S.
Lorenzo, and bore the inscription: "SEPULTURA DOMINI NICOLAI PAULO DE
CONTRATA S. IOANNIS GRISOSTEMI." The church was renewed from its
foundations in 1592, and then, probably, the sarcophagus was cast aside
and lost, and with it all certainty as to the position of the tomb.[25]
[Illustration: Pavement in front of San Lorenzo, Venice.]
[Illustration: S. Lorenzo as it was in the 15th century]
There is no portrait of Marco Polo in existence with any claim to
authenticity. The quaint figure which we give in the Bibliography, vol.
ii. p. 555, extracted from the earliest printed edition of his book, can
certainly make no such pretension.
