Corte del Milion

You have reached a corte, a courtyard surrounded by houses but open to passers-by, and you came in through a sotoportego, a passage under a building. Look at the carved arch, from the 12th and 13th centuries: it is one of the few things left of the Polo family's houses.

1The journey

Marco Polo left Venice in 1271 with his father, Niccolò, and his uncle, Maffeo. He came back in 1295, after nearly a quarter of a century in Asia and at the court of Kublai Khan. Around 1298, as a prisoner of the Genoese, he dictated his memories to Rustichello da Pisa. In Italy that book is known as "Il Milione", and "Milion" was also the family's nickname: hence the name of this courtyard. He died in 1324, and his will is kept in the Biblioteca Marciana.

2The homecoming no one believed

According to Giovanni Battista Ramusio, writing in 1559, the three Polos came home dressed in Tartar fashion and no one recognised them. To convince everyone, they threw a banquet, slit open the seams of their clothes and out tumbled a shower of precious stones.

The account was written more than two and a half centuries after their return, and should be taken as tradition. The Polo houses burned down in the late 16th century and, in 1678, the Grimani family built a theatre here. Today it is called the Malibran, after the singer Maria Malibran, who performed there in the 19th century.

3What to look for

• The carved Byzantine arch in the courtyard.
• The decorative discs, the patere, on the walls.
• The Marco Polo plaque on the theatre facade.