[7] Humboldt tells this (Examen, II. 221),
alleging Jacopo d’Acqui as
authority; and Libri (H.
des Sciences Mathematiques, II. 149),
quoting Doglioni, Historia
Veneziana. But neither authority bears
out the citations. The
story seems really to come from Amoretti’s
commentary on the Voyage
du Cap. L. F. Maldonado, Plaisance, 1812,
p. 67. Amoretti quotes
as authority Pignoria, Degli Dei Antichi.
An odd revival of this old
libel was mentioned to me recently by Mr.
George Moffatt. When
he was at school it was common among the boys to
express incredulity by the
phrase: “Oh, what a Marco Polo!”
[8] Thibault, according to Ducange, was in 1307 named
Grand Master of the
Arblasteers of France; and
Buchon says his portrait is at Versailles
among the Admirals (No. 1170).
Ramon de Muntaner fell in with the
Seigneur de Cepoy in Greece,
and speaks of him as “but a Captain of
the Wind, as his Master was
King of the Wind.” (See Ducange, H. de
l’Empire de Const. sous
les Emp. Francois, Venice ed. 1729, pp. 109,
110; Buchon, Chroniques
Etrangeres, pp. lv. 467-470.)
[9] The note is not found in the Bodleian MS., which
is the third known
one of this precise type.
[10] Messire Jean, the son of Thibault, is mentioned
in the accounts of
the latter in the Chambre
des Comptes at Paris, as having been with
his Father in Romania.
And in 1344 he commanded a confederate
Christian armament sent to
check the rising power of the Turks, and
beat a great Turkish fleet
in the Greek seas. (Heyd. I. 377;
Buchon, 468.)
[11] The document is given in Appendix C, No.
5. It was found by Comm.
Barozzi, the Director of the
Museo Civico, when he had most kindly
accompanied me to aid in the
search for certain other documents in the
archives of the Casa di
Ricovero, or Poor House of Venice. These
archives contain a great mass
of testamentary and other documents,
which probably have come into
that singular depository in connection
with bequests to public charities.
The document next mentioned was found in as strange a site, viz., the Casa degli Esposti or Foundling Hospital, which possesses similar muniments. This also I owe to Comm. Barozzi, who had noted it some years before, when commencing an arrangement of the archives of the Institution.
[12] The Legal Year at Venice began on the 1st of
March. And 1324 was 7th
of the Indiction. Hence
the date is, according to the modern Calendar,
1324.