Marco Polo’s account of his experiences in Asia
shaped the western European vision of the East.He
was born to a merchant family in Venice, and his
uncle and father owned a trading house in Soldaia,
a Crimean port on the Black Sea.
According to Polo, during their travels to the
East, his father and uncle had met the Great Khan
and promised to return to his court with Christian
missionaries. After returning to Venice in
1271, the pair reunited with the 17-year-old Marco
and then, with him, headed back to China. They
traveled from Acre through Jerusalem, overland
through Armenia and Persia (now Iran) to Central
Asia, across the Pamir mountains, along the
Takla Makan Desert in Western China, through the
Gobi Desert and finally reached the summer court
of Kubla Khan in Shangdu, which was about 200
miles north of modern Beijing. They arrived in
1275 and stayed there for the next 17 years.
During this period, Polo claims that Kubla
Khan was so impressed with his intelligence and
diligence that he appointed him to diplomatic missions
that took him to southern China and northern
Burma (now Myanmar). Polo also claims that
he was governor of Yangzhou, a large commercial
city, but this has not been confirmed by scholars.
The Polo family finally had an opportunity to
return home when they were appointed to escort a
Mongol princess en route to Persia to get married.
This time they went by sea, setting off from the
southern Chinese port city of Quanzhou in 1292
and traveling to Sumatra, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka),
southern India, and through the Persian Gulf.After
leaving the princess in Persia, the Polos traveled on
land through Turkey, where they sailed from Constantinople
(now Istanbul) to Venice in 1295.
After being captured in a sea battle in 1296,
Marco Polo was imprisoned in Genoa. There he
met a Pisan romance writer named Rustichello,
who collaborated with him on his only book, Il milione
(called variously The Description of the World;
The Book of Marvels; The Book of Marco Polo; and,
most commonly, The Travels of Marco Polo).
Polo was released from prison in 1298 and returned
to Venice in 1299, where he married and
ran several businesses. He became famous in
Venice for telling stories of his travels, despite the
fact that some people questioned the validity of his
tales.When he lay dying on January 8, his friends
and relatives begged him to recant his stories, but
he insisted that he had not told half of what he had
seen. Marco Polo was buried in the church of San
Lorenzo in Venice.
Critical Analysis
The Travels of Marco Polo poses several interesting
questions for readers and critics. One is the issue of
classification: Is the book a travelogue, a merchant’s
handbook, an autobiography, or even a
fantasy? As a person, Marco Polo does not come
alive on the page; the reader cannot define his likes,
dislikes, or reactions to his experiences, so his work
is generally not considered an autobiography.
Unlike earlier travelogues, Polo does not emphasize
the dangers or strangeness of what he encounters.
Instead, with minimal comment, he
catalogues the religions, appearances, and customs
of the people he encounters and focuses more on
the general and objective in his descriptions of
cities and regions.His emphasis on the varieties of
goods and spices found in the various ports
throughout his travels have led some scholars to
conclude that the book is no more than a guide
for the medieval Venetian merchants who dominated
trade with the East.However, as John Lerner
points out in Marco Polo and the Discovery of the
World, existing merchant guidebooks do not include
the interest in the Mongol Empire’s government
and court, as well as the spectacular
buildings and statues that Polo describes.
Finally, since the 17th century, when enduring
contact with China was established by Jesuit missionaries,
many readers, critics, and scholars have
questioned whether Polo went to China at all. Several
scholars, most notably Leonardo Olschki, have
pointed out how Polo does not mention any of the
same Chinese phenomena that other travelers of
the time mention in their books: no Great Wall,
no tea, no chopsticks or footbinding. Polo’s supporters
argue that Polo seems to have spent his
years in China as part of the Mongol emperor’s
court and that his knowledge of customs is based
on what he observed there, rather than on native
Chinese practices. If, as Lerner theorizes, Marco
Polo spent his time in the East as a minor civil servant
of the Mongol Empire, then he would have
had little contact or interest in native Chinese customs.
On the other hand, he is knowledgeable and
enthusiastic about the Great Khan’s court, describing
in detail the protocol for holidays and banquets.
For example, the servers who bring the
Khan food and drink “are all obliged to cover their
noses and mouths with handsome veils or cloths of
worked silk, in order that his victuals or his wine
may not be affected by their breath.”
Some may say that Marco Polo was a precursor
of things to come, for behind Christopher Columbus’s
voyage and his unexpected discovery of the
New World lay the marvelous East. While Polo
does describe some implausible events, such as the
use of eagles in gathering diamonds, his work relies
little on stories of mythical beasts and human
monsters, as did earlier travelogues and even imitation
travelogues, such as the travels of Sir John
Mandeville. Polo recorded the flora, fauna, and especially
riches of the places he visited and thus
helped shape the Far East’s image as a fabulous
place of bizarre customs and unimaginable wealth.
His book also inspired 14th-century cartographers
to change their maps and record the geography
and cities he had visited. The spices and riches he
describes only heightened the curiosity and longing
of Europeans to trade with the East.
The Travels of Marco Polo has been translated
into many languages from its original Italian.
Columbus owned a copy of the work, which has
been preserved. The first English translation, by
John Frampton, appeared in 1579, followed by a
more accurate English version by W. Marsden in
the early 19th century and another English version
with notes by Sir Henry Yule in 1871. Polo is
remembered for his grand tales of adventure as
well as the information his work provides on the
Mongol culture and customs of the 13th century.
English Versions of a Work by Marco Polo
Travels. New York: Konemann Publishers, 2000.
The Travels ofMarco Polo. Edited by Manuel Komroff.
New York: Liveright Publishing, 2003.
The Travels of Marco Polo: The Complete Yule-Cordier
Edition, Vol. 1. Edited by Henry Yule and Henri
Cordier.Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1993.
Works about Marco Polo
Feeney, Kathy. Marco Polo: Explorer of China. Berkeley
Heights, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, 2004.
Larner, John. Marco Polo and the Discovery of the
World. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
2001.
Olschki, Leonardo. Marco Polo’s Asia: An Introduction
to His “Description of the World” called “Il milione.”
Translated by John A. Scott. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1960.
Wood, Frances.Did Marco Polo Go to China? London:
Secker & Warburg, 1995.