The unique story respecting the return of these famous travellers to Venice will always be deemed the prologue that introduces the notable acts of the explorers of the Atlantic coast territory of America in the fifteenth century. It is therefore properly entitled to a conspicuous place on the first pages of the history of the discovery of America. Five centuries ago it charmed the Venetians with its vivid colorings, and gave to the Orient an entrancing vision that made the name of Cathay for a time a synonym for an earthly paradise. It pictured to them a far-off El Dorado, abounding with gold, gems, and spicery, a country naturally delightful and artificially magnificent. America lay in some of the navigable ways which were sought by acquisitive Europeans to go to it, and thus the return of Nicolò, Maffeo, and Marco Polo, in 1295, to Venice, after an absence of twenty-four years, is inseparably linked to the great chain of events connecting it with the discovery of the new continent of the western hemisphere.[74] Ramusio, the distinguished Italian collector of information relating to voyages and travels, has preserved the account of the strange revelations made by the three travellers on their return from Cathay.[75] “When they arrived here the same fate befell them which happened to Ulysses, who, when he returned after his twenty years’ wanderings to his native Ithaca, was recognized by none of his people. In like manner these three gentlemen, who had been absent so many years from their native city, were not identified by any of their kinsfolk, who believed that they had been dead for many years, as had been reported. They were quite changed in appearance by the prolongation and hardships of their journeys and by the trouble and anxieties they had experienced; and they had a certain indescribable smack of the Tartar both in demeanor and accent, having indeed almost forgotten their Venetian tongue. Their clothes, too, were coarse and shabby, and of a Tartar cut. They proceeded on their arrival to their house, in this city, in the confine of S. Giovanni Crisostomo, where you may see it to this day. The house, which in those days was a lofty and handsome palace, is now known by the name of the Court of the Millions, for a reason which I will tell you presently.