[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 _Monumentà_, _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 _Là Glazà_, which I think there can be no doubt is also intended for Ayas (sometimes called _Giàzza_), a place which in fact is called _Glaza_ in three of the MSS. of which various readings are given in the edition of the Société de Géographie (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 Héthum has put it under 1293. (See _Langlois, Mém. sur les Relations de Gênes avec la Petite-Arménie_.) 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 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]