Behind the Church of San Gian Crisostomo, in the Corte del Millone, is the remnant of the Palazzo del Poli, the house in which Marco Polo first saw the light, in 1259, and where he died in 1323. It dates from the twelfth century, and in the little that remains of it one sees enough to admire to make it a matter of regret that so much is lost. The little Marco was but a year old when his father, Niccolo, and his uncle Matteo started on their first great journey, which extended to the city of the powerful Kublai Khan. They returned, having seen many marvellous things, and again left Venice to repeat their travels, taking Marco with them when he was fifteen years old. All knowledge of them was lost for many years. The Casa Poli was filled with kinsmen who knew little of those who had gone away more than twenty years before, when suddenly, one evening in 1295, three strange figures appeared at the gate. [Illustration: _Dario Palace, on the Grand Canal._] They were in Tartar garb, their hair and beards were long, and their skins dark from exposure, while their curious speech was most un-Venetian. We are told that the doorway through which we pass to-day in the Corte della Sabbionera, with its Byzantine arch, and the cross above it, is the very same at which the travellers knocked. At first they were not believed to be the Poli; and a great excitement was aroused, not only in Palazzo Poli, {339} but through all the neighboring quarter as well, and it seemed for a while very doubtful if they could ever come to their own again. But at last they hit upon a plan by which they could prove themselves to be _the Poli_ by their peculiar conduct. They invited all their relatives to a magnificent banquet, and when the time arrived,--