The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,230 pages of information about The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1.

The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,230 pages of information about The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1.

[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.

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The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.