Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen [188]
APPROACHING his seventieth winter, the sage of the Ca’ Polo fell out of favor with Venetians. With the Mongol Empire in decline, and the Silk Road no longer passable, the moment in history to which Marco belonged receded in time, even though the implications of his travels had yet to be understood, or his Travels fully appreciated.
When he ambled through the streets of Venice, children followed after, calling out, “Messer Marco, tell us another lie!” Or so one legend has it. Another tradition holds that a Venetian masque witnessed the appearance of a reveler disguised as Marco Polo, who amused the guests by telling the most outrageous stories imaginable as though he believed them to be completely true.
By 1323, Marco had become sickly and bedridden. By this time, his Travels had come to the attention of a Dominican friar named Jacopo d’Acqui, who, as was common, reproduced parts of the narrative in his own work, Imago mundi, in which he related a tantalizing story: “Because there were to be found great things, things of mighty import, and indeed almost unbelievable things, he”—that is, Marco—“was entreated by his friends when he was at the point of death to correct his book and to retract those thing that he had written over and above the truth. To which he replied, ‘Friends, I have not written down the half of those things that I saw.’”
What did Marco omit from his travels? Perhaps gossip from the Mongol court, or his own peccadilloes as a young man far from home. Yet that is not exactly the sense Marco’s statement conveys. Rather than referring to a specific idea, his admission suggests that although he was done with his book, it was not done with him. The experiences contained within its pages would not leave him alone. He had been reliving them since his return, but had found no relief in committing them to paper; describing them only reinforced his obsession. If the accuracy of d’Acqui’s report is to be trusted, Marco’s startling comment tells us that his propensity to relive endlessly his travels along the Silk Road was both a gift and a burden; he could never put those experiences behind him. Although his account draws to a conclusion with his release from Kublai Khan’s empire and return to Venice, his story is amorphous, an odyssey without limits. Asia was so large and varied, so rich in natural resources, customs, politics, in wars and wisdom, and so far advanced over Europe, that no one could manage to include it all in one book.
AS MARCO’S health deteriorated, a physician was summoned—a measure tantamount to calling a priest to administer the last rites. Venetian physicians occupied a respected role in society, but their professional skills were severely limited. By law, they were required to advise a patient suffering from a serious illness to allow for time to draw up or revise a will, and to seek absolution.
On January 8, 1324, Marco lay at home dying, despite the ministrations of the exalted physicians. The day was short; the pale sun cast somber, drawn-out shadows. His family called for the priest of San Procolo, Giovanni Giustiniani, who conveniently doubled as a notary, which meant that he could draw up the dying man’s will and certify it. For Marco, this was his last transaction, his contract with eternity, and he approached it with the skill of an experienced merchant. Working from Marco’s precise notes, Father Giustiniani, writing in the vulgate Latin of the late Middle Ages, drew up the document, long on specificity but short on consistency.
Marco appointed his wife, Donata, and three daughters as coexecutrices, and much of the will’s language was formulaic, in accordance with Venetian customs. He directed that the Church was entitled to tithe his estate, as provided by law, and further