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Updated: June 19, 2025
"The second night thereafter was fixed upon to put our plans into execution. We bound ourselves in mutual defense and to undertake to gain possession of the republic. "One of our men named, Simone, was arrested and, when put to the torture, disclosed the plot. While he was being tortured, Nicolo Friano, who was repairing the palace clock, saw it and heard a part of his confession.
In this fleet the queen and the ambassadors embarked, accompanied by Nicolo, Maffei, and Marco; having first taken leave of the great khan, who presented them, at parting, with many rubies and other precious stones, and a sum or money sufficient to defray all their expences for two years.
We cannot tarry before the cathedral, noble despite its incompleteness and the unsightly alterations of later times, and full of fine paintings and matchless wood-carving and wrought metal and precious sculptures; nor before the Palazzo Communale, another grand Gothic wreck, equally dignified and degraded; nor even beside the great fountain erected six hundred years ago by Nicolo and Giovanni da Pisa, the chiefs and founders of the Tuscan school of sculpture; nor beneath the statue of Pope Julius III., which Hawthorne has made known to all; for there are a score of churches and palaces, each with its priceless Perugino, and drawings and designs by his pupil Raphael in his lovely "first manner," which has so much of the Eden-like innocence of his master; and the Academy of Fine Arts, where one may study the Umbrian school at leisure; and last, but not least, the Sala del Cambio, or Hall of Exchange, where Perugino may be seen in his glory.
Of which expedition of Zichmni there are extant in Italian certaine collections or abridgements gathered by Francisco Marcolino out of the letters of M. Nicolo and Antonio Zeni two gentlemen of Venice which liued in those partes. Out of which collections I doe adde concerning the description of Estotiland aforesaid these particulars following.
He would then have gone outside the jurisdiction of the republic, obtained a ship with a crew of desperadoes, sailed round to the seaward side of San Nicolo, and carried you off. Nothing could have saved you, and your resistance would, as that woman told you, have been futile." "We shall be grateful to you all our lives, Francisco," Maria said. "We shall pray for you always, night and morning.
See also my notes on illustrations for an account of the famous landscape roll painted by him in the style of Wang Wei. Bushell, op. cit., p. 135. Ibid., pp. 135-6, where the picture is reproduced. For the episode of the mangonels constructed by Nestorian mechanics under the directions of Nicolo and Maffeo see Marco Polo, op. cit., pp. 281-2. Marco Polo, op. cit., bk. III, c. I, pp. 321-3.
And there was one Coma, who would have remained unknown to this day but that he wrote an exceedingly elegant letter to his friend Nicolo Syllacio in Italy, describing in flowery language the events of the second voyage; which letter, and one written by Doctor Chanca, are the only records of the outward voyage that exist.
The traces of recent and strong emotion, visible at that moment on the pirate's countenance, did not escape the Proveditore, who attributed them, and rightly, to an artifice he had practised. Previously to entering the dungeon, he had caused the name of Nicolo Dansowich to be repeated several times in a deep hollow voice.
If, therefore, Nicolo and Maffei had set out upon their first journey in 1250, they must have arrived at the imperial residence of Cambalu, or Pekin, in 1255, at the latest, or four years before Kublai-khan ascended the throne. Their first journey commenced while Baldwin II. was emperor of Constantinople, who reigned from 1234 to 1261.
Over the door to the left is the earliest work, as it is said, of Nicolò Pisano, and beneath it an Adoration of the Magi, in which some have found the hand of Giovanni, his son; while above the great door itself Our Lord is in glory, with the Twelve Apostles beneath, and Madonna herself in the midst.
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