Читать книгу The Travels of Marco Polo - The Original Classic Edition - Pisa Marco - Страница 3

To those who have no relish for biographies that round the meagre skeleton of authentic facts with a plump padding of what might have been, this sentence of Paulin Paris is quite refreshing in its stern limitation to positive knowledge. And certainly no contemporary authority has yet been found for the capture of our Traveller at Curzola. Still I think that the fact is beyond reasonable doubt.

Ramusio's biographical notices certainly contain many errors of detail; and some, such as the many years' interval which he sets between the Battle of Curzola and Marco's return, are errors which a very little trouble would have enabled him to eschew. But still it does seem reasonable to believe that the main fact of Marco's command of a galley at Curzola, and capture there, was derived from

a genuine tradition, if not from documents.

Let us then turn to the words which close Rusticiano's preamble (see post, p. 2):--"Lequel (Messire Marc) puis demorant en le char-

thre de Jene, fist retraire toutes cestes chouses a Messire Rustacians de Pise que en celle meissme charthre estoit, au tens qu'il avoit

1298 anz que Jezu eut vesqui." These words are at least thoroughly consistent with Marco's capture at Curzola, as regards both the position in which they present him, and the year in which he is thus presented.

There is however another piece of evidence, though it is curiously indirect.

The Dominican Friar Jacopo of Acqui was a contemporary of Polo's, and was the author of a somewhat obscure Chronicle called Imago Mundi.[29] Now this Chronicle does contain mention of Marco's capture in action by the Genoese, but attributes it to a different action from Curzola, and one fought at a time when Polo could not have been present. The passage runs as follows in a manuscript of the Ambrosian Library, according to an extract given by Baldelli Boni:--

"In the year of Christ MCCLXXXXVI, in the time of Pope Boniface VI., of whom we have spoken above, a battle was fought in Arminia, at the place called Layaz, between xv. galleys of Genoese merchants and xxv. of Venetian merchants; and after a great fight the galleys of the Venetians were beaten, and (the crews) all slain or taken; and among them was taken Messer Marco the Venetian,

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who was in company with those merchants, and who was called Milono, which is as much as to say 'a thousand thousand pounds,' for so goes the phrase in Venice. So this Messer Marco Milono the Venetian, with the other Venetian prisoners, is carried off to the prison of Genoa, and there kept for a long time. This Messer Marco was a long time with his father and uncle in Tartary, and he there saw many things, and made much wealth, and also learned many things, for he was a man of ability. And so, being in prison

at Genoa, he made a Book concerning the great wonders of the World, i.e., concerning such of them as he had seen. And what he told in the Book was not as much as he had really seen, because of the tongues of detractors, who, being ready to impose their own lies on others, are over hasty to set down as lies what they in their perversity disbelieve, or do not understand. And because there are many great and strange things in that Book, which are reckoned past all credence, he was asked by his friends on his deathbed to correct the Book by removing everything that went beyond the facts. To which his reply was that he had not told one-half of what he had really seen!"[30]

This statement regarding the capture of Marco at the Battle of Ayas is one which cannot be true, for we know that he did not reach Venice till 1295, travelling from Persia by way of Trebizond and the Bosphorus, whilst the Battle of Ayas of which we have purpose-ly given some detail, was fought in May, 1294. The date MCCLXXXXVI assigned to it in the preceding extract has given rise to some unprofitable discussion. Could that date be accepted, no doubt it would enable us also to accept this, the sole statement from the Traveller's own age of the circumstances which brought him into a Genoese prison; it would enable us to place that imprisonment within a few months of his return from the East, and to extend its duration to three years, points which would thus accord better

with the general tenor of Ramusio's tradition than the capture of Curzola. But the matter is not open to such a solution. The date of the Battle of Ayas is not more doubtful than that of the Battle of the Nile. It is clearly stated by several independent chroniclers, and is carefully established in the Ballad that we have quoted above.[31] We shall see repeatedly in the course of this Book how uncertain are the transcriptions of dates in Roman numerals, and in the present case the LXXXXVI is as certainly a mistake for LXXXXIV as is Boniface VI. in the same quotation a mistake for Boniface VIII.

But though we cannot accept the statement that Polo was taken prisoner at Ayas, in the spring of 1294, we may accept the passage as evidence from a contemporary source that he was taken prisoner in some sea-fight with the Genoese, and thus admit it in corroboration of the Ramusian Tradition of his capture in a sea-fight at Curzola in 1298, which is perfectly consistent with all other facts in

our possession.

[1] In this part of these notices I am repeatedly indebted to Heyd. (See supra, p. 9.)

[2] On or close to the Hill called Monjoie; see the plan from Marino

Sanudo at p. 18.

[3] "Throughout that year there were not less than 40 machines all at work upon the city of Acre, battering its houses and its towers, and smashing and overthrowing everything within their range. There were at least ten of those engines that shot stones so big and heavy that they weighed a good 1500 lbs. by the weight of Champagne; insomuch that nearly all the towers and forts of Acre were destroyed, and only the religious houses were left. And there were slain in this same war good 20,000 men on the two sides, but chiefly of Genoese and Spaniards." (Lettre de Jean Pierre Sarrasin, in Michel's Joinville, p. 308.)

[4] The origin of these columns is, however, somewhat uncertain. [See Cicogna, I. p. 379.]

[5] In 1262, when a Venetian squadron was taken by the Greek fleet in alliance with the Genoese, the whole of the survivors of the

captive crews were blinded by order of Palaeologus. (Roman. ii. 272.) [6] See pp. 16, 41, and Plan of Ayas at beginning of Bk. I.

[7] See Archivio Storico Italiano, Appendice, tom. iv.

[8] Niente ne resta a prender Se no li corpi de li legni: Preixi som senza difender; De bruxar som tute degni!

Como li fom aproximai Queli si levan lantor Como leon descaenai

Tuti criando "Alor! Alor!"

This Alor! Alor! ("Up, Boys, and at 'em"), or something similar, appears to have been the usual war-cry of both parties. So a

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trumpet-like poem of the Troubadour warrior Bertram de Born, whom Dante found in such evil plight below (xxviii. 118 seqq.), in which he sings with extraordinary spirit the joys of war:--

"Le us die que tan no m'a sabor Manjars, ni beure, ni dormir, Cum a quant ang cridar, ALOR! D'ambas la partz; et aug agnir

Cavals voits per l'ombratge...." "I tell you a zest far before

Aught of slumber, or drink, or of food, I snatch when the shouts of ALOR

Ring from both sides: and out of the wood

Comes the neighing of steeds dimly seen...."

In a galley fight at Tyre in 1258, according to a Latin narrative, the Genoese shout "Ad arma, ad arma! ad ipsos, ad ipsos!" The cry

of the Venetians before engaging the Greeks is represented by Martino da Canale, in his old French, as "or a yaus! or a yaus!" that of the Genoese on another occasion as Aur! Aur! and this last is the shout of the Catalans also in Ramon de Muntaner. (Villemain, Litt. du Moyen Age, i. 99; Archiv. Stor. Ital. viii. 364, 506; Pertz, Script. xviii. 239; Muntaner, 269, 287.) Recently in a Sicilian newspaper, narrating an act of gallant and successful reprisal (only too rare) by country folk on a body of the brigands who are such a scourge

to parts of the island, I read that the honest men in charging the villains raised a shout of "Ad iddi! Ad iddi!"

[9] A phrase curiously identical, with a similar sequence, is attributed to an Austrian General at the battle of Skalitz in 1866. (Stoffel's

Letters.)

[10] E no me posso aregordar Dalcuno romanzo vertade Donde oyse uncha cointar Alcun triumfo si sobre!

[11] Stella in Muratori, xvii. 984.

[12] Dandulo, Ibid. xii. 404-405.

[13] Or entram con gran vigor,

En De sperando aver triumpho, Queli zerchando inter lo Gorfo Chi menazeram zercha lor!

And in the next verse note the pure Scotch use of the word bra:--

Siche da Otranto se partim

Quella bra compagnia, Per assar in Ihavonia, D'Avosto a vinte nove di.

[14] The island of Curzola now counts about 4000 inhabitants; the town half the number. It was probably reckoned a dependency

of Venice at this time. The King of Hungary had renounced his claims on the Dalmatian coasts by treaty in 1244. (Romanin, ii. 235.) The gallant defence of the place against the Algerines in 1571 won for Curzola from the Venetian Senate the honourable title in all documents of fedelissima. (Paton's Adriatic, I. 47.)

[15] Ma se si gran colmo avea Perche andava mendigando Per terra de Lombardia Peccunia, gente a sodi? Pone mente tu che l'odi

Se noi tegnamo questa via?

No, ma piu! ajamo omi nostrar

Destri, valenti, e avisti,

Che mai par de lor n' o visti

In tuti officj de mar.

[16] In July 1294, a Council of Thirty decreed that galleys should be equipped by the richest families in proportion to their wealth. Among the families held to equip one galley each, or one galley among two or more, in this list, is the CA' POLO. But this was

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before the return of the travellers from the East, and just after the battle of Ayas. (Romanin, ii. 332; this author misdates Ayas, however.) When a levy was required in Venice for any expedition the heads of each contrada divided the male inhabitants, between the ages of twenty and sixty, into groups of twelve each, called duodene. The dice were thrown to decide who should go first on service. He who went received five lire a month from the State, and one lira from each of his colleagues in the duodena. Hence his pay was sixteen lire a month, about 2_s._ a day in silver value, if these were lire ai grossi, or 1_s._ 4_d._ if lire dei piccoli. (See Romanin, ii.

393-394.)

Money on such occasions was frequently raised by what was called an Estimo or Facion, which was a force loan levied on the citizens in proportion to their estimated wealth; and for which they were entitled to interest from the State.

[17] Several of the Italian chroniclers, as Ferreto of Vicenza and Navagiero, whom Muratori has followed in his "Annals," say the battle was fought on the 8th September, the so-called Birthday of the Madonna. But the inscription on the Church of St. Matthew at Genoa, cited further on, says the 7th, and with this agree both Stella and the Genoese poet. For the latter, though not specifying the day of the month, says it was on a Sunday:--

"Lo di de Domenga era Passa prima en l'ora bona Stormezam fin provo nona Con bataio forte e fera."

Now the 7th September, 1298, fell on a Sunday.

[18] Ma li pensavam grande error

Che in fuga se fussem tuti metui

Che de si lonzi eram vegnui

Per cerchali a casa lor.

[19] "Note here that the Genoese generally, commonly, and by nature, are the most covetous of Men, and the Love of Gain spurs them to every Crime. Yet are they deemed also the most valiant Men in the World. Such an one was Lampa, of that very Doria fam-ily, a man of an high Courage truly. For when he was engaged in a Sea-Fight against the Venetians, and was standing on the Poop of his Galley, his Son, fighting valiantly at the Forecastle, was shot by an Arrow in the Breast, and fell wounded to the Death; a Mishap whereat his Comrades were sorely shaken, and Fear came upon the whole Ship's Company. But Lampa, hot with the Spirit of Battle, and more mindful of his Country's Service and his own Glory than of his Son, ran forward to the spot, loftily rebuked the agitated Crowd, and ordered his Son's Body to be cast into the Deep, telling them for their Comfort that the Land could never have afforded his Boy a nobler Tomb. And then, renewing the Fight more fiercely than ever, he achieved the Victory." (Benvenuto of Imola, in Comment. on Dante. in Muratori, Antiq. i. 1146.)

("Yet like an English General will I die,

And all the Ocean make my spacious Grave; Women and Cowards on the Land may lie,

The Sea's the Tomb that's proper for the Brave!"

--Annus Mirabilis.)

[20] The particulars of the battle are gathered from Ferretus Vicentinus, in Murat. ix. 985 seqq.; And. Dandulo, in xii. 407-408; Navagiero, in xxiii. 1009-1010; and the Genoese Poem as before.

[21] Navagiero, u.s. Dandulo says, "after a few days he died of grief "; Ferretus, that he was killed in the action and buried at Curzola. [22] For the funeral, a MS. of Cibo Recco quoted by Jacopo Doria in La Chiesa di San Matteo descritta, etc., Genova, 1860, p. 26.

For the date of arrival the poem so often quoted:--

"De Oitover, a zoia, a seze di

Lo nostro ostel, con gran festa En nostro porto, a or di sesta Domine De restitui."

[23] S. Matteo was built by Martin Doria in 1125, but pulled down and rebuilt by the family in a slightly different position in 1278.

On this occasion is recorded a remarkable anticipation of the feats of American engineering: "As there was an ancient and very

fine picture of Christ upon the apse of the Church, it was thought a great pity that so fine a work should be destroyed. And so they contrived an ingenious method by which the apse bodily was transported without injury, picture and all, for a distance of 25 ells, and firmly set upon the foundations where it now exists." (Jacopo de Varagine in Muratori, vol. ix. 36.)

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The inscription on S. Matteo regarding the battle is as follows:--"Ad Honorem Dei et Beate Virginis Marie Anno MCCLXXXXVIII Die Dominico VII Septembris iste Angelus captus fuit in Gulfo Venetiarum in Civitate Scursole et ibidem fuit prelium Galearum LXXVI Januensium cum Galeis LXXXXVI Veneciarum. Capte fuerunt LXXXIIII per Nobilem Virum Dominum Lambam Aurie Capitaneum et Armiratum tunc Comunis et Populi Janue cum omnibus existentibus in eisdem, de quibus conduxit Janue homines vi-vos carceratos VII cccc et Galeas XVIII, reliquas LXVI fecit cumburi in dicto Gulfo Veneciarum. Qui obiit Sagone I. MCCCXXIII." It is not clear to what the Angelus refers.

[24] Rampoldi, Ann. Musulm. ix. 217.

[25] Jacopo Doria, p. 280.

[26] Murat. xxiii. 1010. I learn from a Genoese gentleman, through my friend Professor Henry Giglioli (to whose kindness I owe

the transcript of the inscription just given), that a faint tradition exists as to the place of our traveller's imprisonment. It is alleged to have been a massive building, standing between the Grazie and the Mole, and bearing the name of the Malapaga, which is now a barrack for Doganieri, but continued till comparatively recent times to be used as a civil prison. "It is certain," says my informant, "that men of fame in arms who had fallen into the power of the Genoese were imprisoned there, and among others is recorded the name of the Corsican Giudice dalla Rocca and Lord of Cinarca, who died there in 1312;" a date so near that of Marco's imprisonment as

to give some interest to the hypothesis, slender as are its grounds. Another Genoese, however, indicates as the scene of Marco's captivity certain old prisons near the Old Arsenal, in a site still known as the Vico degli Schiavi. (Celesia, Dante in Liguria, 1865, p. 43.) [Was not the place of Polo's captivity the basement of the Palazzo del Capitan del Popolo, afterwards Palazzo del Comune al Mare, where the Customs (Dogana) had their office, and from the 15th century the Casa or Palazzo di S. Giorgio?--H. C.]

[27] The Treaty and some subsidiary documents are printed in the Genoese Liber Jurium, forming a part of the Monumenta His-toriae Patriae, published at Turin. (See Lib. Jur. II. 344, seqq.) Muratori in his Annals has followed John Villani (Bk. VIII. ch. 27) in representing the terms as highly unfavourable to Venice. But for this there is no foundation in the documents. And the terms are stated with substantial accuracy in Navagiero. (Murat. Script. xxiii. 1011.)

[28] Paulin Paris, Les Manuscrits Francois de la Bibliotheque du Roi, ii. 355.

[29] Though there is no precise information as to the birth or death of this writer, who belonged to a noble family of Lombardy, the Bellingeri, he can be traced with tolerable certainty as in life in 1289, 1320, and 1334. (See the Introduction to his Chronicle in the Turin Monumenta, Scriptores III.)

[30] There is another MS. of the Imago Mundi at Turin, which has been printed in the Monumenta. The passage about Polo in that copy differs widely in wording, is much shorter, and contains no date. But it relates his capture as having taken place at La Glaza, which I think there can be no doubt is also intended for Ayas (sometimes called Giazza), a place which in fact is called Glaza in three of the MSS. of which various readings are given in the edition of the Societe de Geographie (p. 535).

[31] "E per meio esse aregordenti De si grande scacho mato Correa mille duxenti

Zonto ge novanta e quatro."

The Armenian Prince Hayton or Hethum has put it under 1293. (See

Langlois, Mem. sur les Relations de Genes avec la Petite-Armenie.)

VII. RUSTICIANO OR RUSTICHELLO OF PISA, MARCO POLO'S FELLOW-PRISONER AT GENOA, THE SCRIBE WHO WROTE DOWN THE TRAVELS.

38. We have now to say something of that Rusticiano to whom all who value Polo's book are so much indebted. [Sidenote: Rusticiano, perhaps a prisoner from Meloria.]

The relations between Genoa and Pisa had long been so hostile that it was only too natural in 1298 to find a Pisan in the gaol of Genoa. An unhappy multitude of such prisoners had been carried thither fourteen years before, and the survivors still lingered there in vastly dwindled numbers. In the summer of 1284 was fought the battle from which Pisa had to date the commencement of her long decay. In July of that year the Pisans, at a time when the Genoese had no fleet in their own immediate waters, had advanced

to the very port of Genoa and shot their defiance into the proud city in the form of silver-headed arrows, and stones belted with scarlet.[1] They had to pay dearly for this insult. The Genoese, recalling their cruisers, speedily mustered a fleet of eighty-eight galleys, which were placed under the command of another of that illustrious House of Doria, the Scipios of Genoa as they have been

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called, Uberto, the elder brother of Lamba. Lamba himself with his six sons, and another brother, was in the fleet, whilst the whole number of Dorias who fought in the ensuing action amounted to 250, most of them on board one great galley bearing the name of the family patron, St. Matthew.[2]

The Pisans, more than one-fourth inferior in strength, came out boldly, and the battle was fought off the Porto Pisano, in fact close in front of Leghorn, where a lighthouse on a remarkable arched basement still marks the islet of MELORIA, whence the battle got its name. The day was the 6th of August, the feast of St. Sixtus, a day memorable in the Pisan Fasti for several great victories. But on this occasion the defeat of Pisa was overwhelming. Forty of their galleys were taken or sunk, and upwards of 9000 prisoners carried to Genoa. In fact so vast a sweep was made of the flower of Pisan manhood that it was a common saying then: "Che vuol veder

Pisa, vada a Genova!" Many noble ladies of Pisa went in large companies on foot to Genoa to seek their husbands or kinsmen: "And when they made enquiry of the Keepers of the Prisons, the reply would be, 'Yesterday there died thirty of them, to-day there have died forty; all of whom we have cast into the sea; and so it is daily.'"[3]

[Illustration: Seal of the Pisan Prisoners.]

A body of prisoners so numerous and important naturally exerted themselves in the cause of peace, and through their efforts, after many months of negotiation, a formal peace was signed (15th April, 1288). But through the influence, as was alleged, of Count Ugolino (Dante's) who was then in power at Pisa, the peace became abortive; war almost immediately recommenced, and the prisoners had no release.[4] And, when the 6000 or 7000 Venetians were thrown into the prisons of Genoa in October 1298, they would find there the scanty surviving remnant of the Pisan Prisoners of Meloria, and would gather from them dismal forebodings of the fate before them.

It is a fair conjecture that to that remnant Rusticiano of Pisa may have belonged.

We have seen Ramusio's representation of the kindness shown to Marco during his imprisonment by a certain Genoese gentleman who also assisted him to reduce his travels to writing. We may be certain that this Genoese gentleman is only a distorted image of Rusticiano, the Pisan prisoner in the gaol of Genoa, whose name and part in the history of his hero's book Ramusio so strangely ignores. Yet patriotic Genoese writers in our own times have striven to determine the identity of this their imaginary countryman![5]

[Sidenote: Rusticiano, a person known from other sources.]

39. Who, then, was Rusticiano, or, as the name actually is read in the oldest type of MS., "Messire Rustacians de Pise"?

Our knowledge of him is but scanty. Still something is known of him besides the few words concluding his preamble to our Traveller's Book, which you may read at pp. 1-2 of the body of this volume.

In Sir Walter Scott's "Essay on Romance," when he speaks of the new mould in which the subjects of the old metrical stories were

cast by the school of prose romancers which arose in the 13th century, we find the following words:--

"Whatever fragments or shadows of true history may yet remain hidden under the mass of accumulated fable which had been heaped upon them during successive ages, must undoubtedly be sought in the metrical romances.... But those prose authors who wrote under the imaginary names of RUSTICIEN DE PISE, Robert de Borron, and the like, usually seized upon the subject of some old minstrel; and recomposing the whole narrative after their own fashion, with additional character and adventure, totally obliterated in that operation any shades which remained of the original and probably authentic tradition," &c.[6]

Evidently, therefore, Sir Walter regarded Rustician of Pisa as a person belonging to the same ghostly company as his own Cleish-bothams and Dryasdusts. But in this we see that he was wrong.

In the great Paris Library and elsewhere there are manuscript volumes containing the stories of the Round Table abridged and somewhat clumsily combined from the various Prose Romances of that cycle, such as Sir Tristan, Lancelot, Palamedes, Giron le Courtois,

&c., which had been composed, it would seem, by various Anglo-French gentlemen at the court of Henry III., styled, or styling themselves, Gasses le Blunt, Luces du Gast, Robert de Borron, and Helis de Borron. And these abridgments or recasts are professedly the work of Le Maistre Rusticien de Pise. Several of them were printed at Paris in the end of the 15th and beginning of the

16th centuries as the works of Rusticien de Pise; and as the preambles and the like, especially in the form presented in those printed editions, appear to be due sometimes to the original composers (as Robert and Helis de Borron) and sometimes to Rusticien de Pise the recaster, there would seem to have been a good deal of confusion made in regard to their respective personalities.

From a preamble to one of those compilations which undoubtedly belongs to Rustician, and which we shall quote at length by and

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bye, we learn that Master Rustician "translated" (or perhaps transferred?) his compilation from a book belonging to King Edward

of England, at the time when that prince went beyond seas to recover the Holy Sepulchre. Now Prince Edward started for the Holy Land in 1270, spent the winter of that year in Sicily, and arrived in Palestine in May 1271. He quitted it again in August, 1272, and passed again by Sicily, where in January, 1273, he heard of his father's death and his own consequent accession. Paulin Paris supposes that Rustician was attached to the Sicilian Court of Charles of Anjou, and that Edward "may have deposited with that king the Romances of the Round Table, of which all the world was talking, but the manuscripts of which were still very rare, especially those of the work of Helye de Borron[7] ... whether by order, or only with permission of the King of Sicily, our Rustician made haste to read, abridge, and re-arrange the whole, and when Edward returned to Sicily he recovered possession of the book from which the indefatigable Pisan had extracted the contents."

But this I believe is, in so far as it passes the facts stated in Rustician's own preamble, pure hypothesis, for nothing is cited that connects Rustician with the King of Sicily. And if there be not some such confusion of personality as we have alluded to, in another

of the preambles, which is quoted by Dunlop as an utterance of Rustician's, that personage would seem to claim to have been a comrade in arms of the two de Borrons. We might, therefore, conjecture that Rustician himself had accompanied Prince Edward to Syria.[8]

[Sidenote: Character of Rustician's Romance compilations.]

40. Rustician's literary work appears from the extracts and remarks of Paulin Paris to be that of an industrious simple man, without method or much judgment. "The haste with which he worked is too perceptible; the adventures are told without connection; you

find long stories of Tristan followed by adventures of his father Meliadus." For the latter derangement of historical sequence we find

a quaint and ingenuous apology offered in Rustician's epilogue to Giron le Courtois:--

"Cy fine le Maistre Rusticien de Pise son conte en louant et regraciant le Pere le Filz et le Saint Esperit, et ung mesme Dieu, Filz de

la Benoiste Vierge Marie, de ce qu'il m'a done grace, sens, force, et memoire, temps et lieu, de me mener a fin de si haulte et si noble matiere come ceste-cy dont j'ay traicte les faiz et proesses recitez et recordez a mon livre. Et se aucun me demandoit pour quoy j'ay parle de Tristan avant que de son pere le Roy Meliadus, le respons que ma matiere n'estoist pas congneue. Car je ne puis pas scavoir tout, ne mettre toutes mes paroles par ordre. Et ainsi fine mon conte. Amen."[9]

In a passage of these compilations the Emperor Charlemagne is asked whether in his judgment King Meliadus or his son Tristan were the better man? The Emperor's answer is: "I should say that the King Meliadus was the better man, and I will tell you why I say so. As far as I can see, everything that Tristan did was done for Love, and his great feats would never have been done but under the constraint of Love, which was his spur and goad. Now that never can be said of King Meliadus! For what deeds he did, he did

them not by dint of Love, but by dint of his strong right arm. Purely out of his own goodness he did good, and not by constraint of Love." "It will be seen," remarks on this Paulin Paris, "that we are here a long way removed from the ordinary principles of Round Table Romances. And one thing besides will be manifest, viz., that Rusticien de Pise was no Frenchman!"[10]

The same discretion is shown even more prominently in a passage of one of his compilations, which contains the romances of

Arthur, Gyron, and Meliadus (No. 6975--see last note but one):--

"No doubt," Rustician says, "other books tell the story of the Queen Ginevra and Lancelot differently from this; and there were certain passages between them of which the Master, in his concern for the honour of both those personages, will say not a word." Alas, says the French Bibliographer, that the copy of Lancelot, which fell into the hands of poor Francesca of Rimini, was not one of those expurgated by our worthy friend Rustician![11]

[Sidenote: Identity of the Romance Compiler with Polo's fellow-prisoner.]

41. A question may still occur to an attentive reader as to the identity of this Romance-compiler Rusticien de Pise with the Messire

Rustacians de Pise, of a solitary MS. of Polo's work (though the oldest and most authentic), a name which appears in other copies

as Rusta Pisan, Rasta Pysan, Rustichelus Civis Pisanus, Rustico, Restazio da Pisa, Stazio da Pisa, and who is stated in the preamble to have acted as the Traveller's scribe at Genoa.

M. Pauthier indeed[12] asserts that the French of the MS. Romances of Rusticien de Pise is of the same barbarous character as that of the early French MS. of Polo's Book to which we have just alluded, and which we shall show to be the nearest presentation of the work as originally dictated by the Traveller. The language of the latter MS. is so peculiar that this would be almost perfect evidence

of the identity of the writers, if it were really the fact. A cursory inspection which I have made of two of those MSS. in Paris, and the extracts which I have given and am about to give, do not, however, by any means support M. Pauthier's view. Nor would that view be consistent with the judgment of so competent an authority as Paulin Paris, implied in his calling Rustician a nom recom-

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mandable in old French literature, and his speaking of him as "versed in the secrets of the French Romance Tongue."[13] In fact the difference of language in the two cases would really be a difficulty in the way of identification, if there were room for doubt. This, however, Paulin Paris seems to have excluded finally, by calling attention to the peculiar formula of preamble which is common to the Book of Marco Polo and to one of the Romance compilations of Rusticien de Pise.

The former will be found in English at pp. 1, 2, of our Translation; but we give a part of the original below[14] for comparison with the preamble to the Romances of Meliadus, Tristan, and Lancelot, as taken from MS. 6961 (Fr. 340) of the Paris Library:--

"Seigneurs Empereurs et Princes, Ducs et Contes et Barons et Chevaliers et Vavasseurs et Bourgeois, et tous les preudommes de cestui monde qui avez talent de vous deliter en rommans, si prenez cestui (livre) et le faites lire de chief en chief, si orrez toutes les grans aventure qui advindrent entre les Chevaliers errans du temps au Roy Uter Pendragon, jusques a le temps au Roy Artus son fils, et des compaignons de la Table Ronde. Et sachiez tout vraiment que cist livres fust translatez du livre Monseigneur Edouart le Roy d'Engleterre en cellui temps qu'il passa oultre la mer au service nostre Seigneur Damedieu pour conquester le Sant Sepulcre, et Maistre Rusticiens de Pise, lequel est ymaginez yci dessus,[15] compila ce rommant, car il en translata toutes les merveilleuses nouvelles

et aventures qu'il trouva en celle livre et traita tout certainement de toutes les aventures du monde, et si sachiez qu'il traitera plus de Monseigneur Lancelot du Lac, et Mons'r Tristan le fils au Roy Meliadus de Leonnoie que d'autres, porcequ'ilz furent sans faille les meilleurs chevaliers qui a ce temps furent en terre; et li Maistres en dira de ces deux pluseurs choses et pluseurs nouvelles que l'en treuvera escript en tous les autres livres; et porce que le Maistres les trouva escript au Livre d'Engleterre."

[Illustration: Palazzo di S Giorgio Genoa]

"Certainly," Paulin Paris observes, "there is a singular analogy between these two prefaces. And it must be remarked that the formula is not an ordinary one with translators, compilers, or authors of the 13th and 14th centuries. Perhaps you would not find a single other example of it."[16]

This seems to place beyond question the identity of the Romance-compiler of Prince Edward's suite in 1270, and the Prisoner of

Genoa in 1298.

[Sidenote: Further particulars concerning Rustician.]

42. In Dunlop's History of Fiction a passage is quoted from the preamble of Meliadus, as set forth in the Paris printed edition of

1528, which gives us to understand that Rusticien de Pise had received as a reward for some of his compositions from King Henry III. the prodigal gift of two chateaux. I gather, however, from passages in the work of Paulin Paris that this must certainly be one of those confusions of persons to which I have referred before, and that the recipient of the chateaux was in reality Helye de Bor-

ron, the author of some of the originals which Rustician manipulated.[17] This supposed incident in Rustician's scanty history must therefore be given up.

We call this worthy Rustician or Rusticiano, as the nearest probable representation in Italian form of the Rusticien of the Round-Table MSS. and the Rustacians of the old text of Polo. But it is highly probable that his real name was Rustichello, as is suggested by the form Rustichelus in the early Latin version published by the Societe de Geographie. The change of one liquid for another never goes for much in Italy,[18] and Rustichello might easily Gallicize himself as Rusticien. In a very long list of Pisan officials during the Middle Ages I find several bearing the name of Rustichello or Rustichelli, but no Rusticiano or Rustigiano.[19]

Respecting him we have only to add that the peace between Genoa and Venice was speedily followed by a treaty between Genoa

and Pisa. On the 31st July, 1299, a truce for twenty-five years was signed between those two Republics. It was a very different matter from that between Genoa and Venice, and contained much that was humiliating and detrimental to Pisa. But it embraced the release of prisoners; and those of Meloria, reduced it is said to less than one tithe of their original number, had their liberty at last. Among the prisoners then released no doubt Rustician was one. But we hear of him no more.

[1] B. Marangone, Croniche della C. di Pisa, in Rerum Ital. Script. of Tartini, Florence, 1748, i. 563; Dal Borgo, Dissert. sopra

l'Istoria Pisana, ii. 287.

[2] The list of the whole number is preserved in the Doria archives, and has been published by Sign. Jacopo D'Oria. Many of the Baptismal names are curious, and show how far sponsors wandered from the Church Calendar. Assan, Alton, Turco, Soldan seem to come of the constant interest in the East. Alaone, a name which remained in the family for several generations, I had thought certainly borrowed from the fierce conqueror of the Khalif (infra, p. 63). But as one Alaone, present at this battle, had a son also there, he must surely have been christened before the fame of Hulaku could have reached Genoa. (See La Chiesa di S. Matteo, pp.

250, seqq.)

89

In documents of the kingdom of Jerusalem there are names still more anomalous, e.g., Gualterius Baffumeth, Joannes Mahomet. (See Cod. Dipl. del Sac. Milit. Ord. Gerosol. I. 2-3, 62.)

[3] Memorial. Potestat. Regiens. in Muratori, viii. 1162.

[4] See Fragm. Hist. Pisan. in Muratori, xxiv. 651, seqq.; and Caffaro, id. vi. 588, 594-595. The cut in the text represents a striking memorial of those Pisan Prisoners, which perhaps still survives, but which at any rate existed last century in a collection at Lucca. It is the seal of the prisoners as a body corporate: SIGILLUM UNIVERSITATIS CARCERATORUM PISANORUM JANUE

DETENTORUM, and was doubtless used in their negotiations for peace with the Genoese Commissioners. It represents two of the prisoners imploring the Madonna, Patron of the Duomo at Pisa. It is from Manni, Osserv. Stor. sopra Sigilli Antichi, etc., Firenze,

1739, tom. xii. The seal is also engraved in Dal Borgo, op. cit. ii. 316.

[5] The Abate Spotorno in his Storia Letteraria della Liguria, II. 219, fixes on a Genoese philosopher called Andalo del Negro, mentioned by Boccaccio.

[6] I quote from Galignani's ed. of Prose Works, v. 712. This has "Rusticien de Puise." In this view of the fictitious character of the names of Rusticien and the rest, Sir Walter seems to have been following Ritson, as I gather from a quotation in Dunlop's H. of Fiction. (Liebrecht's German Version, p. 63.)

[7] Giron le Courtois, and the conclusion of Tristan.

[8] The passage runs thus as quoted (from the preamble of the Meliadus--I suspect in one of the old printed editions):--