[6] Marco’s seniority rests only on the assertion of Ramusio, who also
    calls Maffeo older than Nicolo.  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