AN ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR.
Signior Nicolo Polo, the father of our author, and his brother
Signior Maffio, began their travels from Constantinople in the year
1250, and having proceeded to the court of the Grand Khan of Tartary,
resided there for many years, and returned, as the reader will see,
to Venice about the year 1269, where they found the wife of Signior
Nicolo deceased, and her son, of whom she was left big at the time of
their departure, a well accomplished youth of nineteen years of age.
Him they carried back with them to the court of the Khan, and after
having spent twenty-six years more without any news being heard of
them by their friends at Venice, returned safely thither in the year
1295. On their arrival at their own house in St. John Chrysistom's
Street, they found themselves in a strange situation, being not only
worn entirely out of the memory of their family and acquaintance, but
having lost, in a manner, the very tokens of their country, being
become Tartars in their speech as well as their habit, and,
therefore, under a necessity of taking some extraordinary steps to
recover the respect and reverence due to them, by convincing the
world that they were really noble Venetians, and the individual
persons who had been so long lost to their country and friends.
It was with this view that they gave a magnificent entertainment to
their relations, at which they all three came forth in rich suits of
crimson satin; of which, when the guests were seated, they stripped
themselves, and gave them to the servants; appearing next in crimson
damask, these also they put off at the last service, and bestowed
likewise on the servants, being then dressed in crimson velvet. When
dinner was over, and all who waited withdrawn, Marco Polo brought out
their coats of Tartarian cloth or felt, and out of their foldings
produced an incredible quantity of rich jewels, among which there
were some well known to those present, and which indisputably proved
these strangers of the Polo family. Signior Maffio Polo became a
worthy magistrate of Venice, and lived and died in peace.
As for our author Signior Marco, a few months after his return, the
Genoese Admiral Lampa Doria coming with a fleet of seventy galleys to
the island of Curzola, they fitted out from Venice, under the command
of Andrea Dandolo, a great naval force, in which he had the command
of a galley, and was so unlucky as to be taken prisoner and carried
to Genoa, where he remained in spite of all the offers that were made
for his ransom several years; so that his father, despairing of his
return, and desirous that his own offspring might inherit his riches,
married a second time, and had three children. In the time of this
imprisonment all the young nobility of Genoa resorted to our Marco to
hear the recital of his voyages and adventures, which gave them so
great satisfaction, that one of them prevailed upon him to send for
his notes from Venice; and when thus assisted, wrote from his own
mouth the following history in Latin; from whence it was translated
into Italian; and this Italian was again translated into Latin, and
abridged; whence grew that prodigious corruption so justly complained
of in the first printed copies. This work of Marco's was supported
by the testimony of his father, and by that of his uncle on his
death-bed. At last Marco himself obtained his liberty, returned to
Venice, married, and had two daughters, Moreta and Fantina,* but had
no male issue. He died as he lived, beloved and admired by all who
knew or conversed with him; for with the advantages of birth and
fortune he was humble, and made no other use of his great interest in
the state than to do good.
* There was another daughter named Bellela.