But in Marco the Elder's Will these
two are always (3 times) specified as "Nicolaus et Matheus."
[7] This seems implied in the Elder Marco's Will (1280): "Item de bonis
quae me habere contingunt de fraterna Compagnia a suprascriptis
Nicolao et Matheo Paulo," etc.
[8] In his Will he terms himself "Ego Marcus Polo quondam de
Constantinopoli."
[9] There is no real ground for doubt as to this. All the extant MSS.
agree in making Marco fifteen years old when his father returned to
Venice in 1269.
[10] Baldelli and Lazari say that the Bern MS. specifies 30th April; but
this is a mistake.
[11] Pipino's version runs: "Invenit Dominus Nicolaus Paulus uxorem suam
esse de functam, quae in recessu suo fuit praegnans. Invenitque
filium, Marcum nomine, qui jam annos xv. habebat aetatis, qui post
discessum ipsius de Venetiis natus fuerat de uxore sua praefata." To
this Ramusio adds the further particular that the mother died in
giving birth to Mark.
The interpolation is older even than Pipino's version, for we find in
the rude Latin published by the Societe de Geographie "quam cum
Venetiis primo recessit praegnantem dimiserat." But the statement is
certainly an interpolation, for it does not exist in any of the
older texts; nor have we any good reason for believing that it was an
authorised interpolation. I suspect it to have been introduced to
harmonise with an erroneous date for the commencement of the travels
of the two brothers.
Lazari prints: "Messer Nicolo trovo che la sua donna era morta, e
n'era rimasto un fanciullo di dodici anni per nome Marco, che il
padre non avea veduto mai, perche non era ancor nato quando egli
parti." These words have no equivalent in the French Texts, but are
taken from one of the Italian MSS. in the Magliabecchian Library, and
are I suspect also interpolated. The dodici is pure error (see p. 21
infra).
[12] The last view is in substance, I find, suggested by Cicogna (ii.
389).
The matter is of some interest, because in the Will of the younger
Maffeo, which is extant, he makes a bequest to his uncle (Avunculus)
Jordan Trevisan. This seems an indication that his mother's name may
have been Trevisan. The same Maffeo had a daughter Fiordelisa. And
Marco the Elder, in his Will (1280), appoints as his executors, during
the absence of his brothers, the same Jordan Trevisan and his own
sister-in-law Fiordelisa ("Jordanum Trivisanum de confinio S.
Antonini: et Flordelisam cognatam meam"). Hence I conjecture that this
cognata Fiordelisa (Trevisan?) was the wife of the absent Nicolo,
and the mother of Maffeo. In that case of course Maffeo and Marco were
the sons of different mothers. With reference to the above suggestion
of Nicolo's second marriage in 1269 there is a curious variation in a
fragmentary Venetian Polo in the Barberini Library at Rome. It runs,
in the passage corresponding to the latter part of ch. ix. of
Prologue: "i qual do fratelli steteno do anni in Veniezia aspettando
la elletion de nuovo Papa, nel qual tempo Mess. Nicolo si tolse moier
et si la laso graveda." I believe, however, that it is only a
careless misrendering of Pipino's statement about Marco's birth.
[13] [Major Sykes, in his remarkable book on Persia, ch. xxiii. pp.
262-263, does not share Sir Henry Yule's opinion regarding this
itinerary, and he writes:
"To return to our travellers, who started on their second great
journey in 1271, Sir Henry Yule, in his introduction,[A] makes them
travel via Sivas to Mosul and Baghdad, and thence by sea to Hormuz,
and this is the itinerary shown on his sketch map. This view I am
unwilling to accept for more than one reason. In the first place, if,
with Colonel Yule, we suppose that Ser Marco visited Baghdad, is it
not unlikely that he should term the River Volga the Tigris,[B] and
yet leave the river of Baghdad nameless? It may be urged that Marco
believed the legend of the reappearance of the Volga in Kurdistan, but
yet, if the text be read with care and the character of the traveller
be taken into account, this error is scarcely explicable in any other
way, than that he was never there.
"Again, he gives no description of the striking buildings of Baudas,
as he terms it, but this is nothing to the inaccuracy of his supposed
onward journey. To quote the text, 'A very great river flows through
the city,... and merchants descend some eighteen days from Baudas, and
then come to a certain city called Kisi,[C] where they enter the Sea
of India.' Surely Marco, had he travelled down the Persian Gulf, would
never have given this description of the route, which is so untrue as
to point to the conclusion that it was vague information given by some
merchant whom he met in the course of his wanderings.
"Finally, apart from the fact that Baghdad, since its fall, was rather
off the main caravan route, Marco so evidently travels east from Yezd
and thence south to Hormuz, that unless his journey be described
backwards, which is highly improbable, it is only possible to arrive
at one conclusion, namely, that the Venetians entered Persia near
Tabriz, and travelled to Sultania, Kashan, and Yezd. Thence they
proceeded to Kerman and Hormuz, where, probably fearing the sea
voyage, owing to the manifest unseaworthiness of the ships, which he
describes as 'wretched affairs,' the Khorasan route was finally
adopted. Hormuz, in this case, was not visited again until the return
from China, when it seems probable that the same route was retraced to
Tabriz, where their charge, the Lady Kokachin, 'moult bele dame et
avenant,' was married to Ghazan Khan, the son of her fiance Arghun.