Among the wealthy Venetians whose enthusiasm took the form of offering themselves and their ships to the common cause was a certain Marco Polo but recently returned from adventurous journies in the mysterious lands of the Grand Khan of Tartary; in Persia, China, Japan, and the Indies; and who from his wonderful stories of the million peopled cities and millions of jewels and treasure he had seen in his twenty-five years’ wanderings was popularly known as Messer Marco Milione. In August 1298 all was ready and a fleet of ninety-five sail, under the command of Andrea Dandolo, set its course southwards and came upon the Genoese squadron of eighty-five vessels, under Lamba Doria off the island of Curzola. The fleets were about evenly matched, and on September 8th the action began. Doria, by superior seamanship, got the weather gauge and the Venetians, fighting too with the sun in their eyes, were routed. Twelve galleys, whose captains, panic-stricken, had abandoned the fight, alone escaped. With abject mien they told the extent of the disaster. The fine fleet was sunken, captured or burned, the loss in killed appalling, and seven thousand of their countrymen were on their way to Genoese prisons.[27] Among the captives was Messer Marco Milione himself, who to relieve the tedium of his imprisonment, dictated in halting French to his prison comrade Rustichello the story of his wanderings and adventures. A small court, in which Marco Polo’s house stood on a site now covered by the Malibran Theatre, is called to this day the Corte del Milione. [Illustration: REMAINS OF MARCO POLO’S HOUSE] Venice, conscious that her staying power was greater than her rival’s, without a moment of panic set about equipping another fleet of a hundred galleys. But Genoa, exhausted by her costly victory, was willing to treat, and in 1299 the Imperial Vicar of Milan effected a peace between the Republics on honourable terms.