[Sidenote:  They pass by Persia to Venice.  Their relations there.]

22.  The princess, whose enjoyment of her royalty was brief, wept as she took leave of the kindly and noble Venetians.  They went on to Tabriz, and after a long halt there proceeded homewards, reaching Venice, according to all the texts some time in 1295.[22]

We have related Ramusio’s interesting tradition, like a bit out of the Arabian Nights, of the reception that the Travellers met with from their relations, and of the means that they took to establish their position with those relations, and with Venetian society.[23] Of the relations, Marco the Elder had probably been long dead;[24] Maffeo the brother of our Marco was alive, and we hear also of a cousin (consanguineus) Felice Polo, and his wife Fiordelisa, without being able to fix their precise position in the family.  We know also that Nicolo, who died before the end of the century, left behind him two illegitimate sons, Stefano and Zannino.  It is not unlikely that these were born from some connection entered into during the long residence of the Polos in Cathay, though naturally their presence in the travelling company is not commemorated in Marco’s Prologue.[25]

[1] Zurla, I. 42, quoting a MS. entitled Petrus Ciera S. R. E. Card, de
    Origine Venetorum et de Civitate Venetiarum.  Cicogna says he could
    not find this MS. as it had been carried to England; and then breaks
    into a diatribe against foreigners who purchase and carry away such
    treasures, “not to make a serious study of them, but for mere
    vain-glory ... or in order to write books contradicting the very MSS.
    that they have bought, and with that dishonesty and untruth which are
    so notorious!” (IV. 227.)

[2] Campidoglio Veneto of Cappellari (MS. in St. Mark’s Lib.), quoting
    “the Venetian Annals of Giulio Faroldi.”

[3] The Genealogies of Marco Barbaro specify 1033 as the year of the
    migration to Venice; on what authority does not appear (MS. copy in
    Museo Civico at Venice).

[4] Cappellari, u.s., and Barbaro.  In the same century we find (1125,
    1195) indications of Polos at Torcello, and of others (1160) at
    Equileo, and (1179, 1206) Lido Maggiore; in 1154 a Marco Polo of
    Rialto.  Contemporary with these is a family of Polos (1139, 1183,
    1193, 1201) at Chioggia (Documents and Lists of Documents from
    various Archives at Venice).

[5] See Appendix C, Nos. 4, 5, and 16.  It was supposed that an autograph
    of Marco as member of the Great Council had been discovered, but this
    proves to be a mistake, as will be explained further on (see p. 74,
    note).  In those days the demarcation between Patrician and
    non-Patrician at Venice, where all classes shared in commerce, all
    were (generally speaking) of one race, and where there were neither
    castles, domains, nor trains of horsemen, formed no wide gulf.  Still
    it is interesting to establish the verity of the old tradition of
    Marco’s technical nobility.