The Tale of Marco Polo
Part 2 - the Writing of his Travels
Ramusio continues on, in his preface, to recount the story of the arrival of the Polos back to Venice and of the battle between Genoa and Venice, and then of how Marco Polo’s tales came to be recorded - but not by the fickle Venetians!
“Not many months after the arrival of the travellers at Venice, news came that Lampa Doria, Captain of the Genoese Fleet, had advanced with 70 galleys to the Island of Curzola, upon which orders were issued by the Prince of the Most Illustrious Signory for the arming of 90 galleys with all the expedition possible, and Messer Marco Polo for his valour was put in charge of one of these. So he with the others, under the command of the Most Illustrious Messer Andrea Dandalo, Procurator of St. Mark’s, as Captain General, a very brave and worthy gentleman, set out in search of the Genoese Fleet. They fought on the September feast of Our Lady, and, as is the common hazard of war, our fleet was beaten, and Polo was made prisoner. For, having pressed on in the vanguard of the attack, and fighting with high and worthy courage in defence of his country and his kindred, he did not receive due support, and being wounded, he was taken, along with Dandolo, and immediately put in irons and sent to Genoa.”
Marco Polo had been taken prisoner by the Genoese during their war with Venice. This war had started back in 1257, during a dispute between Genoa and Venice over the divvying of the spoils of Byzantium after the Fourth Crusade, when Venice and the Templars defeated the Genoese and the Knights Hospitalers! - that sounds like a falling out among thieves! The war was restarted in 1295, after the Venetians sacked the Genoese port of Kaffa, in present day Crimea.
[Note: we shall see Kaffa again in a later part of our story.]
Ramusio says that Marco Polo was captured and imprisoned after the battle of Curzola in 1298, and that he was befriended by another prisoner - Rustichello of Pisa, who had been captured during an earlier war between Genoa and Pisa in 1284. Now, Rustichello was not an unimportant random prisoner, but he was known as the writer of ‘Roman de Roi Artus’ - ‘The Romance of King Arthur’, the first romance of King Arthur that was written by an Italian.
[Note: Some people have speculated that some of the more fanciful tales found throughout the book, were actually added by Rustichello himself. And I tend to agree.]
Ramusio tells us the story of how the travels of Polo were written:
“When his rare qualities and marvellous travels became known there, the whole city gathered to see him and to speak with him, and he was no longer entreated as a prisoner but as a dear friend and honoured gentleman. Indeed they showed him such honour and affection that at all hours of the day he was visited by the noblest gentlemen of the city, and was continually receiving presents of every useful kind. Messer Marco finding himself in this position, and witnessing the general eagerness to hear all about Cathay and the Great Khan, which indeed compelled him daily to repeat his story till he was weary, was advised to put the matter in writing.
So having found means to get a letter written to his father here at Venice, in which he desired the latter to send the notes and memoranda which he had brought home with him, after the receipt of these, and assisted by a Genoese gentleman, who was a great friend of his, and who took great delight in learning about the various regions of the world, and used on that account to spend many hours daily in the prison with him, he wrote this present book (to please him) in the Latin tongue.”
[Note: Rustichello apparently didn’t write the travels in Latin, but he wrote in an old French-Venetian language of that time - a written language, not a spoken language.]
And my feathered friend chirped, what was it that Marco could write about, while in a prison in Genoa, that he couldn’t write about, while in his home in Venice? Hmmmm.
[next week - part 3 - the Tale of his Travels]