Malibran, in honour of that famous singer, and this it
still bears.[3]

[In 1881, the year of the Venice International Geographical Congress,
a Tablet was put up on the Theatre with the following inscription:--

QVI FURONO LE CASE
DI
MARCO POLO
CHE VIAGGIO LE PIU LONTANE REGIONI DELL' ASIA
E LE DESCRISSE

PER DECRETO DEL COMUNE
MDCCCLXXXI].

There is still to be seen on the north side of the Court an arched doorway
in Italo-Byzantine style, richly sculptured with scrolls, disks, and
symbolical animals, and on the wall above the doorway is a cross similarly
ornamented.[4] The style and the decorations are those which were usual in
Venice in the 13th century. The arch opens into a passage from which a
similar doorway at the other end, also retaining some scantier relics of
decoration, leads to the entrance of the Malibran Theatre. Over the
archway in the Corte Sabbionera the building rises into a kind of tower.
This, as well as the sculptured arches and cross, Signor Casoni, who gave
a good deal of consideration to the subject, believed to be a relic of the
old Polo House. But the tower (which Pauthier's view does show) is now
entirely modernized.[5]

[Illustration: The site of the CA' POLO.
Fig. A. From the Diner Map A. D. 1500.
Fig. B. From Map by Ludovico Ughi A.D. 1729 Scale 1 to 2500.
Fig. C. From Recent Map. Scale 1 to 1315.]

Other remains of Byzantine sculpture, which are probably fragments of the
decoration of the same mansion, are found imbedded in the walls of
neighbouring houses.[6] It is impossible to determine anything further as
to the form or extent of the house of the time of the Polos, but some
slight idea of its appearance about the year 1500 may be seen in the
extract (fig. A) which we give from the famous pictorial map of Venice
attributed erroneously to Albert Duerer. The state of the buildings in the
last century is shown in (fig. B) an extract from the fine Map of Ughi;
and their present condition in one (fig. C) reduced from the Modern
Official Map of the Municipality.

[Coming from the Church of S. G. Grisostomo to enter the calle del Teatro
on the left and the passage (_Sottoportico_) leading to the _Corte del
Milione_, one has in front of him a building with a door of the epoch of
the Renaissance; it was the office of the _provveditori_ of silk; on the
architrave are engraved the words: