This We Learn From The Will Of The Younger Maffeo, Marco's Brother, Which
Bears The Date Just Named, And Of
Which we give an abstract below.[1] It
seems to imply strong regard for the testator's brother Marco, who is
Made
inheritor of the bulk of the property, failing the possible birth of a
son. I have already indicated some conjectural deductions from this
document. I may add that the terms of the second clause, as quoted in the
note, seem to me to throw considerable doubt on the genealogy which
bestows a large family of sons upon this brother Maffeo. If he lived to
have such a family it seems improbable that the draft which he thus left
in the hands of a notary, to be converted into a Will in the event of his
death (a curious example of the validity attaching to all acts of notaries
in those days), should never have been superseded, but should actually
have been so converted after his death, as the existence of the parchment
seems to prove. But for this circumstance we might suppose the Marcolino
mentioned in the ensuing paragraph to have been a son of the younger
Maffeo.
Messer Maffeo, the uncle, was, we see, alive at this time. We do not know
the year of his death. But it is alluded to by Friar Pipino in the
Preamble to his Translation of the Book, supposed to have been executed
about 1315-1320; and we learn from a document in the Venetian archives
(see p. 77) that it must have been previous to 1318, and subsequent to
February 1309, the date of his last Will. The Will itself is not known to
be extant, but from the reference to it in this document we learn that he
left 1000 lire of public debt[2] (? imprestitorum) to a certain Marco
Polo, called Marcolino. The relationship of this Marco to old Maffeo is
not stated, but we may suspect him to have been an illegitimate son.
[Marcolino was a son of Nicolo, son of Marco the Elder; see vol. ii.,
Calendar, No. 6. - H. C.]
[Sidenote: Documentary notices of Polo at this time. The sobriquet of
Milione.]
44. In 1302 occurs what was at first supposed to be a glimpse of Marco as
a citizen, slight and quaint enough; being a resolution on the Books of
the Great Council to exempt the respectable Marco Polo from the penalty
incurred by him on account of the omission to have his water-pipe duly
inspected. But since our Marco's claims to the designation of Nobilis
Vir have been established, there is a doubt whether the providus vir or
prud'-homme here spoken of may not have been rather his namesake Marco
Polo of Cannareggio or S. Geremia, of whose existence we learn from
another entry of the same year.[3] It is, however, possible that Marco the
Traveller was called to the Great Council after the date of the document
in question.
We have seen that the Traveller, and after him his House and his Book,
acquired from his contemporaries the surname, or nickname rather, of Il
Milione. Different writers have given different explanations of the
origin of this name; some, beginning with his contemporary Fra Jacopo
d'Acqui, (supra, p. 54), ascribing it to the family's having brought home
a fortune of a million of lire, in fact to their being millionaires.
This is the explanation followed by Sansovino, Marco Barbaro, Coronelli,
and others.[4] More far-fetched is that of Fontanini, who supposes the
name to have been given to the Book as containing a great number of
stories, like the Cento Novelle or the Thousand and One Nights! But
there can be no doubt that Ramusio's is the true, as it is the natural,
explanation; and that the name was bestowed on Marco by the young wits of
his native city, because of his frequent use of a word which appears to
have been then unusual, in his attempts to convey an idea of the vast
wealth and magnificence of the Kaan's Treasury and Court.[5] Ramusio has
told us that he had seen Marco styled by this sobriquet in the Books of
the Signory; and it is pleasant to be able to confirm this by the next
document which we cite. This is an extract from the Books of the Great
Council under both April, 1305, condoning the offence of a certain Bonocio
of Mestre in smuggling wine, for whose penalty one of the sureties had
been the NOBILIS VIR MARCHUS PAULO MILIONI.[6]
It is alleged that long after our Traveller's death there was always, in
the Venetian Masques, one individual who assumed the character of Marco
Milioni, and told Munchausenlike stories to divert the vulgar. Such, if
this be true, was the honour of our prophet among the populace of his own
country.[7]
45. A little later we hear of Marco once more, as presenting a copy of his
Book to a noble Frenchman in the service of Charles of Valois.
[Sidenote: Polo's relations with Thibault de Cepoy.]
This Prince, brother of Philip the Fair, in 1301 had married Catharine,
daughter and heiress of Philip de Courtenay, titular Emperor of
Constantinople, and on the strength of this marriage had at a later date
set up his own claim to the Empire of the East. To this he was prompted by
Pope Clement V., who in the beginning of 1306 wrote to Venice, stimulating
that Government to take part in the enterprise. In the same year, Charles
and his wife sent as their envoys to Venice, in connection with this
matter, a noble knight called THIBAULT DE CEPOY, along with an
ecclesiastic of Chartres called Pierre le Riche, and these two succeeded
in executing a treaty of alliance with Venice, of which the original,
dated 14th December, 1306, exists at Paris. Thibault de Cepoy eventually
went on to Greece with a squadron of Venetian Galleys, but accomplished
nothing of moment, and returned to his master in 1310.[8]
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