They are under this name made the object of a similitude by Dante
    (surely a most unhappy one) in reference to the resplendent spirits
    flitting on the celestial stairs in the sphere of Saturn:—­

      “E come per lo natural costume
        Le Pole insieme, al cominciar del giorno,
        Si muovono a scaldar le fredde piume: 
      Poi altre vanno via senza ritorno,
        Altre rivolgon se, onde son mosse,
        Ed altre roteando fan soggiorno.”—­Parad. XXI. 34.

There is some difference among authorities as to the details of the Polo blazon.  According to a MS. concerning the genealogies of Venetian families written by Marco Barbaro in 1566, and of which there is a copy in the Museo Civico, the field is gules, the bend or.  And this I have followed in the cut.  But a note by S. Stefani of Venice, with which I have been favoured since the cut was made, informs me that a fine 15th-century MS. in his possession gives the field as argent, with no bend, and the three birds sable with beaks gules, disposed thus ***.

    [Illustration:  Arms of the Polo[A]]

    [A] [This coat of arms is reproduced from the Genealogies of
       Priuli, Archivio di Stato, Venice.—­H.  C.]

[9] Marco Antonio Trevisano was elected Doge, 4th June, 1553, but died on
    the 31st of May following.  We do not here notice Ramusio’s numerous
    errors, which will be corrected in the sequel. [See p. 78.]

II.  SKETCH OF THE STATE OF THE EAST AT THE TIME OF THE JOURNEYS OF THE POLO FAMILY.

9.  The story of the travels of the Polo family opens in 1260.

[Sidenote:  State of the Levant.]

Christendom had recovered from the alarm into which it had been thrown some 18 years before when the Tartar cataclysm had threatened to engulph it.  The Tartars themselves were already becoming an object of curiosity rather than of fear, and soon became an object of hope, as a possible help against the old Mahomedan foe.  The frail Latin throne in Constantinople was still standing, but tottering to its fall.  The successors of the Crusaders still held the Coast of Syria from Antioch to Jaffa, though a deadlier brood of enemies than they had yet encountered was now coming to maturity in the Dynasty of the Mamelukes, which had one foot firmly planted in Cairo, the other in Damascus.  The jealousies of the commercial republics of Italy were daily waxing greater.  The position of Genoese trade on the coasts of the Aegean was greatly depressed, through the predominance which Venice had acquired there by her part in the expulsion of the Greek Emperors, and which won for the Doge the lofty style of Lord of Three-Eighths of the Empire of Romania.  But Genoa was biding her time for an early revenge, and year by year her naval strength and skill were increasing.