| Marco Polo | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Marco Polo[Note 1] |
|
| Born | c. 1254 Venice, Venetian Republic |
| Died | January 8, 1324 (aged 69) Venice, Venetian Republic |
| Resting place | Church of San Lorenzo 45°15′41″N 12°12′15″E / 45.2613°N 12.2043°E |
| Nationality | Venetian (Italian) |
| Occupation | Merchant, Explorer |
| Known for | The Travels of Marco Polo |
| Spouse(s) | Danta Badoer |
| Children | Fantina, Bellela, and Moretta |
| Parents | Mother: Unknown Father: Niccolò Polo |
Marco Polo (English
pronunciation: /ˈmɑrkoʊ ˈpoʊloʊ/ (
listen);
Italian pronunciation: [ˈmarko ˈpɔːlo])
(c. 1254 – January 8, 1324) was a merchant from the Venetian Republic
who wrote Il Milione, which
introduced Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about
trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled
through Asia and met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to
Venice to meet Marco for the first time. The three of them embarked
on an epic journey to Asia, returning after 24 years to find Venice
at war with Genoa; Marco was
imprisoned, and dictated his stories to a cellmate. He was released
in 1299, became a wealthy merchant, married and had 3 children. He died
in 1324, and was buried in San Lorenzo.
Il Milione was translated, embellished, copied by hand and adapted; there is no authoritative version. It documents his father's journey to meet the Kublai Khan, who asked them to become ambassadors, and communicate with the pope. This led to Marco's quest, through Acre, into China and to the Mongol court. Marco wrote of his extensive travels throughout Asia on behalf of the Khan, and their eventual return after 15,000 miles (24,140 km) and 24 years of adventures.
Their pioneering journey inspired Columbus and others. Marco Polo's other legacies include Venice Marco Polo Airport, the Marco Polo sheep, and several books and films. He also had an influence on European cartography, leading to the introduction of the Fra Mauro map.
Contents |
The exact time and place of Marco Polo's birth are unknown, and current theories are mostly conjectural. However, the most quoted specific date is somewhere "around 1254",[Note 2] and it is generally accepted that Marco Polo was born in the Venetian Republic. While the exact birthplace is unknown, most biographers point towards Venice itself as Marco Polo's home town.[Note 3][1] His father Niccolò was a merchant who traded with the Middle East, becoming wealthy and achieving great prestige.[2][3] Niccolò and his brother Maffeo set off on a trading voyage, before Marco was born.[3] In 1260, Niccolò and Maffeo were residing in Constantinople when they foresaw a political change; they liquidated their assets into jewels and moved away.[2] According to The Travels of Marco Polo, they passed through much of Asia, and met with the Kublai Khan.[4] Meanwhile, Marco Polo's mother died, and he was raised by an aunt and uncle.[3] Polo was well educated, and learned merchant subjects including foreign currency, appraising, and the handling of cargo ships,[3] although he learned little or no Latin.[2]
In 1269, Niccolò and Maffeo returned to Venice, meeting Marco for the first time. In 1271, Marco Polo (at seventeen years of age), his father, and his uncle set off for Asia on the series of adventures that were later documented in Marco's book. They returned to Venice in 1295, 24 years later, with many riches and treasures. They had travelled almost 15,000 miles (24,140 km).[3]
Upon their return, Venice was at war with Genoa, and Marco Polo was taken prisoner. He spent the few months of his imprisonment dictating a detailed account of his travels to fellow inmate, Rustichello da Pisa,[3] who incorporated tales of his own as well as other collected anecdotes and current affairs from China. The book became known as The Travels of Marco Polo, and depicts the Polos' journeys throughout Asia, giving Europeans their first comprehensive look into the inner workings of the Far East, including China, India, and Japan.[5] Marco Polo was finally released from captivity in August 1299,[3] and returned home to Venice, where his father and uncle had purchased a large house in the central quarter named contrada San Giovanni Crisostomo. The company continued its activities and Marco soon became a wealthy merchant. Polo financed other expeditions, but never left Venice again. In 1300, he married Donata Badoer, the daughter of Vitale Badoer, a merchant.[6] They had three daughters, called Fantina, Bellela and Moreta.[7]
In 1323, Polo was confined to bed, due to illness. On January 8, 1324, despite physicians' efforts to treat him, Polo was on his deathbed. To write and certify the will, his family requested Giovanni Giustiniani, a priest of San Procolo. His wife, Donata, and his three daughters were appointed by him as co-executrices. The church was entitled by law to a portion of his estate; he approved of this and ordered that a further sum be paid to the convent of San Lorenzo, the place where he wished to be buried.[8] He also set free a "Tartar slave" who may have accompanied him from Asia.[9]
He divided up the rest of his assets, including several properties, between individuals, religious institutions, and every guild and fraternity to which he belonged. He also wrote-off multiple debts including 300 lire that his sister-in-law owed him, and others for the convent of San Giovanni, San Paolo of the Order of Preachers, and a cleric named Friar Benvenuto. He ordered 220 soldi be paid to Giovanni Giustiniani for his work as a notary and his prayers.[8] The will, which was not signed by Polo, but was validated by then relevant "signum manus" rule, by which the testator only had to touch the document to make it abide to the rule of law,[10] was dated January 9, 1324. Due to the Venetian law stating that the day ends at sunset, the exact date of Marco Polo's death cannot be determined, but it was between the sunsets of January 8 and 9, 1324.[8]
An authoritative version of Marco Polo's book does not exist, and the early manuscripts differ significantly. The published versions of his book either rely on single scripts, blend multiple versions together or add notes to clarify, for example in the English translation by Henry Yule. Another English translation by A.C. Moule and Paul Pelliot, published in 1938, is based on the Latin manuscript which was found in the library of the Cathedral of Toledo in 1932, and is 50% longer than other versions.[11] Approximately 150 variants in various languages are known to exist, and without the availability of a printing press many errors were made during copying and translation, resulting in many discrepancies.[12]
The book starts with a preface about his father and uncle traveling to Bolghar where Prince Berke Khan lived. A year later, they went to Ukek [13] and continued to Bukhara. There, an envoy from Levant invited them to meet Kublai Khan, who had never met Europeans.[14] In 1266, they reached the seat of the Kublai Khan at Dadu, present day Beijing, China. Khan received the brothers with hospitality and asked them many questions regarding the European legal and political system.[15] He also inquired about the Pope and Church in Rome.[16] After the brothers answered the questions he tasked them with delivering a letter to the Pope, requesting 100 Christians acquainted with the Seven Arts (grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, arithmetic, music and astronomy). Kublai Khan requested that an envoy bring him back oil of the lamp in Jerusalem.[17] The long sede vacante between the death of Pope Clement IV in 1268 and the election of his successor delayed the Polos in fulfilling Khan's request. They followed the suggestion of Theobald Visconti, then papal legate for the realm of Egypt, and returned to Venice in 1269 or 1270 to await the nomination of the new Pope, which allowed Marco to see his father for the first time, at the age of fifteen or sixteen.[18]
In 1271, Niccolò, Maffeo and Marco Polo embarked on their voyage to fulfill Khan's request. They sailed to Acre, and then rode on camels to the Persian port of Hormuz. They wanted to sail to China, but the ships there were not seaworthy, so they continued overland until reaching Khan's summer palace in Shangdu, near present-day Zhangjiakou. Three and one-half years after leaving Venice, when Marco was about 21 years old, Khan welcomed the Polos into his palace.[3] The exact date of their arrival is unknown, but scholars estimate it to be between 1271 and 1275.[Note 4] On reaching the Mongol court, the Polos presented the sacred oil from Jerusalem and the papal letters to their patron.[2]
Marco knew four languages, and the family had accumulated a great deal of knowledge and experience that was useful to Khan. It is possible that he became a government official;[3] he wrote about many imperial visits to China's southern and eastern provinces, the far south and Burma.[19]
Kublai Khan declined the Polos' requests to leave China. They became worried about returning home safely, believing that if Khan died, his enemies might turn against them because of their close involvement with the ruler. In 1292, Khan's great-nephew, then ruler of Persia, sent representatives to China in search of a potential wife, and they asked the Polos to accompany them, so they were permitted to return to Persia with the wedding party — which left that same year from Zaitun in southern China on a fleet of 14 junks. The party sailed to the port of Singapore, travelled north to Sumatra and around the southern tip of India, eventually crossing the Arabian Sea to Hormuz. The two-years voyage was a perilous one - of the six hundred people (not including the crew) in the convoy only eighteen had survived (including all three Polos)[20]. The Polos left the wedding party after reaching Hormuz and travelled overland to the port of Trebizond on the Black Sea, the present day Trabzon.[3]
Other less well-known European explorers had already travelled to China, such as Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, but Polo's book meant that their journey was the first to be widely known. Christopher Columbus was inspired enough by Polo's description of the Far East to visit those lands for himself; a copy of the book was among his belongings, with handwritten annotations.[21] Bento de Góis, inspired by Polo's writings of a Christian kingdom in the east, travelled 4,000 miles (6,437 km) in three years across Central Asia. He never found the kingdom, but ended his travels at the Great Wall of China in 1605, proving that Cathay was what Matteo Ricci called "China".[22]
The Marco Polo sheep, a subspecies of Ovis aries, is named after the explorer,[23] who described it during his crossing of Pamir (ancient Mount Imeon) in 1271.[Note 5] In 1851, a three-masted Clipper built in Saint John, New Brunswick also took his name; the Marco Polo was the first ship to sail around the world in under six months.[24] The airport in Venice is named Venice Marco Polo Airport,[25] and the frequent flyer program of Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific is known as the "Marco Polo Club".[26] The Travels of Marco Polo are fictionalised in Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne's Messer Marco Polo and Gary Jennings' 1984 novel The Journeyer. Polo also appears as the pivotal character in Italo Calvino's novel Invisible Cities. The 1982 television miniseries, Marco Polo, directed by Giuliano Montaldo and depicting Polo's travels, won two Emmy Awards and was nominated for six more.[27] Marco Polo also appears as a Great Explorer in the 2008 strategy video game Civilization Revolution.[28]
Marco Polo's travels may have had some influence on the development of European cartography, ultimately leading to the European voyages of exploration a century later.[29] The 1453 Fra Mauro map was said by Giovanni Battista Ramusio to have been an improved copy of the one brought from Cathay by Marco Polo:
That fine illuminated world map on parchment, which can still be seen in a large cabinet alongside the choir of their monastery (the Camaldolese monastery of San Michele di Murano) was by one of the brothers of the monastery, who took great delight in the study of cosmography, diligently drawn and copied from a most beautiful and very old nautical map and a world map that had been brought from Cathay by the most honourable Messer Marco Polo and his father.
"Marco Polo". Catholic Encyclopedia. New
York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Marco_Polo.
This article is an itinerary.
Marco Polo was a Venetian traveler who went far to the East, following some of the many branches of the Silk Road. He left in 1271 and returned about 1295. His book about his travels was a best-seller then and is still well-known 700 years later.
William Dalrymple retraced the route in the 1980s and wrote a book, In Xanadu [1], about it.
Marco Polo owes his fame to a book which he wrote with Rusticiano of Pisa after his return. At the time, there was an intense rivalry between the great trading cities of Venice, Pisa and Genoa. Polo and Rusticiano were both prisoners of war in Genoa when they met and wrote the book.
The original title translates as A Description of the World, but it is usually referred to as The Travels of Marco Polo. This was the first account of a journey to the East to be widespread in Europe, and was the best reference on Asia from its publication around 1300 until the Portuguese reached the East by sea 200 years later. Polo's tales of the riches of the East were part of the reason for the Portuguese voyages, and later spurred on Columbus.
The book was the first in Europe to mention a number of things including oil from Iran, and coal, paper money and window glass from China. Some claim that Polo introduced noodles to Italy, but this is hotly disputed.
This itinerary is based on a version of the book downloaded from Project Gutenberg [2]. They describe it as "the unabridged third edition (1903) of Henry Yule's annotated translation, as revised by Henri Cordier; together with Cordier's later volume of notes and addenda (1920)." All quotes are from that version.
There is considerable scholarly controversy about the book. It was written by two Italians, but the original was probably in medieval French, the trade language of the day. The oldest known copies are from a few decades later, several conflicting versions in French, Italian and Latin. A later Italian version contains additional material, apparently based on Polo family papers. Polo actually saw some of the things he speaks of, but for others he repeats tales from other travelers. Which are which? How much did Rusticiano, the writer of romances, embellish the story? Some critics say Marco never got East of Kashgar and only heard tales of central China — he never mentions chopsticks, tea, bound feet, or the Great Wall. Others cite Mongol records indicating someone named Polo was indeed there.
Fortunately, various scholars have figured out most of this. Here, we simply follow Yule and Cordier, and discuss the route as the book gives it, ignoring the controversies.
The book generally uses Persian names for places. What about the Mongol names? Or Chinese? What was lost in various translations? In various wars? Is the city still there? Has it been renamed? We give Polo's term and the modern name. For example, Polo's Kinsay (which Yule and Cordier call Hang-Chau-Fu) is Hangzhou.
The brothers Nicolo and Maffeo Polo were Venetian traders. One brother had a wife back home, but they worked mainly out of Acre (a crusader city that is now called Akko in what is now Northern Israel) and Constantinople (modern Istanbul), which Venice ruled at the time. From 1260 to 1269, the brothers made a trip to the far East. On their second trip, starting in 1271, they brought Nicolo's teenage son Marco.
The family had strong ties to the Adriatic island of Korčula near Dubrovnik, then a Venetian possesion. It seems likely Marco was born there, though he grew up mainly in Venice. Because Korčula is trying to develop tourism, there are some Polo-related museums and monuments there. Of course, there are also some in Venice.
Some quotes from Yule and Cordier's commentary, about the political and economic situation when the Polos set out are as follows:
"Chinghiz" is an alternate spelling for Genghis Khan.
The brothers set out from Constantinople (modern Istanbul) in 1260, and sailed across the Black Sea to Soldaia in the Crimea. Today the city is called Sudak and is in the Ukraine. Soldaia was a largely Greek city at that time and routinely traded with various Mediterranean ports.
You can still take a boat from Istanbul to Trebizond (now called Trabzon) in eastern Turkey; one variant of the Istanbul to New Delhi over land itinerary uses this. There might also be boats to Sudak or nearby Sevastopol.
Ibn Batuta was a Tunisian who set out East in 1325 and also wrote of his travels.
In this period the great trading cities of Genoa, Venice and Pisa dominated the Mediterranean world. One of the tourist sights of modern Sudak is the ruins of a Genoese fortress.
Where the brothers were more daring than most other traders was continuing beyond Soldaia, deeper into Mongol territory. They went into the Caucasus to Sarai, capital of this part of the Mongol empire, near modern Astrakhan, Russia. Then a war between Mongol factions broke out, preventing a return West.
Unable to go West, the brothers headed East to the great city of Bokhara, which like everything else in Central Asia had been conquered by the Mongols a generation earlier.
"Chinghiz" is Genghis Khan.
Today, Bokhara and Samarkand are cities in Uzbekistan, and Balkh is a town with some interesting ruins in Northern Afghanistan. The Persian empire was once much larger than modern Iran, including much of what we now call Central Asia. The brothers lived in Bokhara for three years and became fluent in Persian.
In Bokhara, they learned that the Great Khan, Kublai- grandson of Genghis and, at least in theory, overlord of all Mongols- had never met a European and had expressed curiosity about and goodwill toward them. So they went on, traveling via Samarkand, Kashgar, Turfan and Hami (the Northern branch of the Silk Road) to his summer capital in Xanadu somewhat Northwest of modern Beijing.
The Khan received them warmly and sent them back West with letters for the Pope, expressions of friendship and requests for missionaries and scholars.
On the second trip, the brothers brought young Marco along.
The brothers went back to Acre, this time with young Marco, and then up to Jerusalem to get some oil from the holy sepulchre which the Khan had requested. They then set off East again without a papal reply to the Khan's letters.
Word reached them that a Pope had finally been elected, and that it was their friend Theobald, papal legate in Acre. They returned to Acre, got replies to the letters, and headed off for Kublai's court again in late 1271. They had letters from the Pope and two friars instead of the 100 scholars the Khan had requested. But the friars soon turned back. It is interesting to speculate on how history might have been different if the Pope had sent the requested 100 scholars. The Khan also invited scholars and missionaries from other places — Tibetan Buddhists and Persian Muslims — and those had a great effect on China.
They went East overland, traveling by caravan and heading for Hormuz on the Persian Gulf. Today the city is gone but the phrase "the straits of Hormuz" still turns up in newscasts. It is the narrows at the outlet of the Gulf. The nearest modern city is Bandar Abbas, capital of Iran's Hormuzgan province.
Their route was indirect, setting out from the Mediterranean port of Laias, North to Armenia and Georgia, then to Mosul in what is now Iraq, then into Persia (now known as Iran) via Tabriz, Yazd and Kerman to Hormuz. The book talks of Damascus and Baghdad, but it is doubtful they actually visited those cities.
The original plan was to take a ship East from Hormuz, but after reaching Hormuz they decided to swing North instead. Marco would later come to Hormuz by sea, taking the Maritime Silk Road on his return journey.
The three men went back to Kerman and on to Persia's Eastern province of Khorasan. This put them on the main Silk Road route. The branch they took involved going Northeast to Balkh, then Southeast toward Kashmir and finally North to reach Khotan in what is now Xinjiang. The major routes today are the Khyber Pass from Afghanistan into Pakistan and the Karakoram Highway North to China, but the Polos' exact route is unclear. They may have taken lesser-known passes such as the route through Ladakh.
The brothers had taken the Northern branch of the Silk Road around the Kalimakan Desert on the previous trip. This time, the first city they reached in what is now China was Khotan, in the middle of the Southern branch, so naturally they continued East on that branch.
They reached the Khan's capitals and were warmly welcomed. The winter capital was then called Khánbálik or Canbulac, meaning the Khan's camp; it later grew into Beijing. The summer capital was Northwest of Beijing across the Great Wall, near a town Polo called Kaimenfu. The palace itself was Shangtu or Xanadu. Much later, Polo's book would inspire Coleridge:
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree;
Where Alph, the sacred river ran,
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."
Yule and Cordier's summary of China's situation at the time is as follows:
"Chingiz" is Genghis Khan. China is still "Kithai" in modern Russian.
The "Sung" are also called the "Southern Song". "Hang-chau fu" is Hangzhou.
By the time the Polos reached China the second time, the Khan had subjugated Southern China, which the book calls "Manzi." However, he needed officials to help rule it and did not yet trust the newly-conquered Chinese. Along with many others, Marco became an official of the empire, a job that soon had him traveling over large parts of China.
The provinces mentioned are modern Shanxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan and Yunnan. Marco visited many cities along the way; here are his comments on some.
Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi. The area has iron and coal and makes steel.
From Yunnan, he circled back to Chengdu, probably via Guizhou.
Of Marco's others trips, Yule and Cordier say:
Yang-chau is Yangzhou in Jiangsu. The modern town of Karakorum, Southeast of the current capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, has two ruined cities nearby, one the Mongol capital which Polo visited and the other the Uighur capital a few centuries earlier. Champa was a kingdom in what is now Vietnam.
The Tangut or Western Xia were a people of largely Tibetan ancestry, originally from Western Sichuan. For several hundred years before the Mongol conquest they had a Buddhist kingdom, independent but paying tribute to the Sung Emperor. It was centered in what is now Ningxia, but at its peak it was much larger than Ningxia and was quite rich. It was the first non-Chinese kingdom one entered going West on the Silk Road. There are Tangut royal tombs near Yinchuan, their capital. Much of the art in the Buddhist grottoes at Dunhuang is from the Western Xia.
Nestorius was the archbishop of Constantinople in the fifth century. He taught that the human and divine aspects of Christ were two distinct natures, not unified. His teaching was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431, but survived in the Assyrian Church which was supported by the Persian Empire as an alternative to the Byzantine Church. The Nestorians were quite active as missionaries in the East, reaching as far as Korea. There are relics throughout Central Asia and China, notably including a stele at Xi'an.
Polo devotes two chapters to this city. The title of the first one:
"Kinsay" is Hangzhou and "Manzi" is Polo's term for the South of China, conquered by the Mongols a few years before. Hangzhou was the capital of the Sung dynasty, and remained important after that dynasty was deposed by the conquest.
Polo may not be exaggerating much here. Yule and Cordier quote several later visitors — Persian, Arab, and Jesuit — with quite similar opinions.
Hangzhou was the capital of the Sung dynasty prior to the Mongol conquest.
Mawei, just outside Fuzhou, still builds ships. Many of the ships and crew for Zheng He's great voyages of the 1400s came from this area. The French destroyed the place and a large part of the Chinese navy that was moored there, in the late 19th century.
After a few years, the Polos were ready to go home. As Yule and Cordier put it:
At this time, the Mongols ruled most of Asia and the Great Khan had vassals in various places. One of these ruled Iran, the ancestor of the Persian dynasty who would later conquer much of India and be known there as Moguls (Mongols).
They sailed in a fleet of 14 ships with 600 passengers from Zaiton in Fujian province. The journey would take two years and cost many lives. The book says only 18 passengers survived, but all three Polos and the bride were among them.
The English word "satin" is thought to be derived from "Zaiton," the original source for its export. It was from this port that Kublai Khan's ill-fated expedition against Japan sailed.
Zaiton is generally thought to be modern Quanzhou, though some scholars argue in favour of Xiamen. Polo's description is long and detailed. Some highlights:
Marco describes the Chinese ships in some detail:
These are much larger than European vessels of the day and the system of watertight compartments was far ahead of contemporary European methods. The Chinese routinely sailed to India, Arabia and even East Africa several hundred years before the great European voyages of discovery, and Arabs and Persians sailed to China.
Polo did not himself visit Japan but he digresses to give a fairly detailed account of "Chipangu" and of Kublai Khan's unsuccessful invasion attempt.
They stopped in Champa, a kingdom in Indochina paying tribute to the Khan. It is not entirely clear where this was, probably somewhere in modern Vietnam. Polo decribes Java, but it is not clear if he actually visited it. They did stop in a city Polo calls Malaiur. This was in the area of modern Singapore and Malacca, but it does not seem to have been either of those.
After that, they spent several months in Sumatra, probably waiting out the monsoon season. Polo calls this "Lesser Java" and gives much detail of various kingdoms, commerce, religion and culture. They also visited the Andaman and Nicobar islands and Sri Lanka en route to India.
In India, he visited several places on the East coast including the tomb of Saint Thomas near Madras. On the West coast, the first stop was naturally Calicut on the Malabar coast, now Kerala, then along the coast to Thane near Bombay, to Gujarat, and to Khambhat. He describes Sindh but does not seem to have stopped there. He also describes several inland provinces of South India.
He describes the Indian Ocean island of Socotra reasonably well, then goes on to talk of Madagascar and Zanzibar which he gets quite wrong. Presumably he was repeating travelers' tales for these. He also describes Abyssinia, now Somalia and Eritrea, but it is not clear if he went there. He may have picked up that information when he stopped in Aden, a city in Yemen which was then the capital of an empire that included them.
Eventually they reached Hormuz and continued overland to Tabriz to deliver the bride. The planned bridegroom having died in the meanwhile, she married his son.
The Polos then returned home, sailing from Trebizond (Trabzon) on the Black Sea to Constantinople (Istanbul) and on to Venice which they reached in 1295.
(There is currently no text in this page)
|
Singular |
Plural |
Marco Polo (uncountable)
[[File:|thumb|right|Portrait of Marco Polo]]
Marco Polo (1254 - January 8 1324) was an Italian trader and explorer. He was one of the first Europeans to explore east Asia. Many other explorers, including Christopher Columbus, looked up to him.
He went on a 25 year trip to China with his father and uncle during the Mongol Dynasty.
As Marco Polo's mother died when he was born he grew up in Venice with his father Niccolo Polo, who took him on his first journey to Cathey (china). His family were merchants, not explorers.
He started his travels at the age of 17 leaving Venice on a boat that went through the Mediterranean Sea, Ayas, Tabriz and Kerman. Then he travelled across Asia getting as far as Beijing. On the way there he had to go over mountains and through terrible deserts. Across hot burning lands and places where the cold was horrible. He served in Khans court for 17 years and left the Far East and returned to Venice by sea. There was sickness on board and 600 passengers and crew died and some say pirates attacked.
Some scholars believe that while Marco Polo did go to China, did not go to all of the other places described in his book. He brought noodles back from China and the Italians formed all new sizes and shapes and called it pasta.
Soon after Marco Polo returned from his journeys he fought in a war against Genoa, got captured and put in prison, When he was in prison he became friendly with a prisoner, Rusticello, who was a writer of romances and novels. Marco told the writer about all his adventures. Rusticello wrote down his words which led Marco to the creation of a famous book called the The travels of Marco Polo, and became famous throughout Europe. They found his stories to be very interesting and strange as western people did not know much about the Eastern world.
Marco Polo’s nickname was Marco IL Milione standing for a million lies as the Venetians thought he was lying about his travels.
   | Polo's travels - Marco Polo and His Travels |
| | Marco Polo's ''Description of the World'' - This page has moved |
 | F. Wood's "Did Marco Polo Go To China?" - Pacific & Asian History |
| | Category - Open Directory - Society: History: By Topic: Exploration: Explorers: Polo, Marco |
| | ''Silk Road, North China'', C. Michael Hogan, the Megalithic Portal, editor A. Burnham (2007) - The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map: Silk Road, North China [Northern Silk Road, North Silk Road] Ancient Trackway |
| | Marco Polo Stamps - Marco Polo in philately |
| | Marco Polo - Croatian Adventurer - Marco Polo Genealogy by Adam Eterovich |
| | Mostar, il ponte ground zero - Repubblica.it/cronaca: Mostar, il ponte ground zero |
| | Gli italiani d'Istria litigano con il Vaticano - Istria on the Internet - News Media - Gli italiani d' Istria litigano con il Vaticano |
| | Biography resources dedicated to Marco Polo - Biography of Marco Polo - biography, autobiography & memoir resources |
| | link title - Example Web Page |
|
|
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Misc
Search
