of Genoa after the fall of Constantinople.

Of the building itself I speak elsewhere; it is rather to its place in
the story of Genoa that I have wished here to draw attention.

And it was now, indeed, that Genoa reached, perhaps, the zenith of her
power. For in 1284 comes the great victory of Meloria, which laid Pisa
low. Enraged partly at the success of Genoa in the East, partly at her
growing power and general wealth, Pisa, with that extraordinary flaming
and ruthless energy so characteristic of her, determined to dispose of
Genoa once and for all. Nor were the Genoese unwilling to meet her.
Indeed, they urged her to it. The two fleets, bearing some sixty
thousand men, that of Pisa commanded by a Venetian, Andrea Morosini,
that of Genoa by Oberto Doria, met at Meloria, not far from Bocca
d'Arno, when the Pisans were utterly defeated, partly owing to the
treachery of the immortal Count Ugolino, who sailed away without
striking a blow.[1] Yet in spite of her defeat Pisa carried on the war
for four years, when she sued for peace, which, however, she could not
keep, so that in 1290 we find Corrado Doria sailing into the Porto
Pisano, breaking the chain which guarded it, and carrying it back to
Genoa, where part of it hung as a trophy till our own time on the façade
of the Palazzo di S. Giorgio.

Nor were the Genoese content, for soon after this victory we find them,
led by Lamba Doria, utterly beating the Venetians at Curzola, in the
Adriatic, where they took a famous prisoner, Messer Marco Polo, just
returned from Asia. They brought him back to Genoa, where he remained in
prison for nearly two years, and wrote his masterpiece. Whether it was
the influence of so illustrious a captive, or merely the natural
expression of their own splendid and adventurous spirit, about this time