Marco Polo

About this figure

Marco Polo (c. 1254-1324) was a Venetian merchant and traveler whose account of his journeys across Asia gave medieval Europe one of its first detailed descriptions of the Mongol Empire and the court of Kublai Khan. Around 1271, as a young man, Polo set out with his father, Niccolò, and uncle, Maffeo, both experienced merchants who had already made one journey east, traveling overland along trade routes through Persia and Central Asia to reach the court of the Great Khan in China, where, by Polo's account, he spent roughly two decades, traveling extensively through Mongol-controlled territory and reportedly serving the Khan in various official capacities. The Polos returned to Venice around 1295 after a return voyage that took them through Southeast Asia, India, and the Persian Gulf.

Not long afterward, Marco was captured during a naval conflict between Venice and its rival Genoa and held as a prisoner of war; it was in a Genoese prison that he dictated his account of his travels to a fellow captive, the romance writer Rustichello da Pisa, who shaped the material into the narrative that circulated widely across Europe under titles including "Il Milione" and, in English, "The Travels of Marco Polo," also known as the "Book of the Marvels of the World." The book's descriptions of the wealth, scale, and sophistication of Kublai Khan's empire, along with its accounts of paper money, coal, and the postal relay system of the Mongol domains, struck many contemporary European readers as implausible exaggeration, and Polo was said to have been urged on his deathbed to retract his more fantastic claims, which he reportedly refused to do. Later research and comparison with independent Chinese, Persian, and Mongol sources have corroborated a substantial number of the book's details, though a minority of modern historians have questioned whether Polo personally reached as far as he claimed or compiled some material from earlier travelers' accounts. He died in Venice in 1324.

Written by Epoch Voices. Not the figure’s own words.