elli and Lazari say that the Bern MS. specifies 30th April; but
this is a mistake.

[11] Pipino's version runs: "Invenit Dominus Nicolaus Paulus uxorem suam
esse de functam, quae in recessu suo fuit praegnans. Invenitque
filium, Marcum nomine, qui jam annos xv. habebat aetatis, qui post
discessum ipsius de Venetiis natus fuerat de uxore sua praefata." To
this Ramusio adds the further particular that the mother died in
giving birth to Mark.

The interpolation is older even than Pipino's version, for we find in
the rude Latin published by the Societe de Geographie "quam cum
Venetiis primo recessit praegnantem dimiserat." But the statement is
certainly an _interpolation_, for it does not exist in any of the
older texts; nor have we any good reason for believing that it was an
_authorised_ interpolation. I suspect it to have been introduced to
harmonise with an erroneous date for the commencement of the travels
of the two brothers.

Lazari prints: "Messer Nicolo trovo che la sua donna era morta, e
n'era rimasto un fanciullo di _dodici_ anni per nome Marco, _che il
padre non avea veduto mai, perche non era ancor nato quando egli
parti_." These words have no equivalent in the French Texts, but are
taken from one of the Italian MSS. in the Magliabecchian Library, and
are I suspect also interpolated. The _dodici_ is pure error (see p. 21
infra).

[12] The last view is in substance, I find, suggested by Cicogna (ii.
389).

The matter is of some interest, because in the Will of the younger
Maffeo, which is extant, he makes a bequest to his uncle (_Avunculus_)
Jordan Trevisan. This seems an indication that his mother's name may
have been Trevisan. The same Maffeo had a daughter _Fiordelisa_. And
Marco the Elder, in his Will (1280), appoints as his executors, during
the absence of his brothers, the same Jordan Trevisan and his own
sister-in-law _Fiordelisa_ ("Jordanum Trivisanum de confinio S.
Antonini: et Flordelisam cognatam meam"). Hence I conjecture that this
_cognata Fiordelisa_ (Trevisan?) was the wife of the absent Nicolo,
and the mother of Maffeo. In that case of course Maffeo and Marco were
the sons of different mothers. With reference to the above suggestion
of Nicolo's second marriage in 1269 there is a curious variation in a
fragmentary Venetian Polo in the Barberini Library at