ows: "To the glory of God and the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the
year 1298, on Sunday 7 September, this angel was taken in Venetian
waters in the city of Curzola, and in that place was the battle of 76
Genoese galleys with 86 Venetian galleys, of which 84 were taken by the
noble Lord Lamba Doria, then Captain and Admiral of the Commune and of
the People of Genoa, with the men on them, of which he brought back to
Genoa alive as prisoners 7400, along with 18 galleys, and the other 66
he caused to be burnt in the said Venetian waters,--he died at Savona
in 1323."[3] It was in this engagement that Marco Polo was taken
prisoner and brought to Genoa.

The second inscription on this facade refers to the battle of Sapienza,
when in 1354 Pagano Doria beat the Venetians off the coast of Greece. It
reads as follows:[4] "In honour of God and the Blessed Mary. In the
fourth day of November 1354, the noble Lord Pagano Doria with 31 Genoese
galleys, at the Island of Sapienza, fought and took 36 Venetian galleys
and four ships, and led to Genoa 1400 men alive as captives with their
captain."

The third inscription deals again with a defeat of the Venetian fleet,
by Luciano Doria in 1379. It reads as follows:[5] "To the glory of God
and the Blessed Mary. In the year 1379, on the 5th day of May, in the
Gulf of the Venetians near Pola, there was a battle of 22 Genoese
galleys with 22 galleys of the Venetians, in which were 4075 men-at-arms
and many other men from Pola; of which galleys 16 were taken with all
that was in them by the noble Lord Luciano Doria, Captain General of the
Commune of Genoa, who in the said battle while fighting valiantly met
his death. The sixteen galleys of the Venetians were conducted into
Genoa with 2407 captive men."

The fourth inscription refers to the earlier victory of Oberto Doria
over the Pisans. It is as follows:[6] "In the name of the Holy Trinity,
in the year of Our Lord 1284, on the 6th day of August, the high and
mighty Lord Oberto Doria, at that time Captain and Admiral of the
Commune and of the Genoese people, triumphed in the Pisan waters over
the Pisans, taking from them 33 galleys with 7 sunk and all the rest put
to flight, and with many dead men left in the waters; and he returned to
Genoa with a great multitude of captives, so that 7272 were placed in
the prisons. There was taken Andrea Morosini of Venice, then Podesta
and Captain General in war of the Commune of Pisa, with the standard of
the