The Travels of Marco Polo
SynopsisPlot
Marco Polo was the most famous traveller of his time. His voyages began in 1271 with a visit to China, after which he served the Kubilai Khan on numerous diplomatic missions. On his return to the West he was made a prisoner of war and met Rustichello of Pisa, with whom he collaborated on this book. The accounts of his travels provide a fascinating glimpse of the different societies he encountered: their religions, customs, ceremonies and way of life; on the spices and silks of the East; on precious gems, exotic vegetation and wild beasts. He tells the story of the holy shoemaker, the wicked caliph and the three kings, among a great many others, evoking a remote and long-vanished world with colour and immediacy.
Story
About this book
In 1271, the Venetian merchant Marco Polo set out for Asia alongside his father Niccolo and uncle Maffeo. Their destination was Cathay, the medieval European name for China, where the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan held court over a vast territory. Marco Polo spent years in the Khan's service, carrying out diplomatic missions across the empire. The book records what he observed along the way: local religions, customs, ceremonies, trade in spices and silks, precious stones, unfamiliar plants, and animals unknown in Europe.
Polo did not write the text himself. After returning west, he was captured and held as a prisoner of war in Genoa. There he met Rustichello of Pisa, a fellow prisoner and writer, and the two of them composed the account together. The result mixes direct observation with secondhand reports and stories collected during Polo's travels, including tales of holy men, rulers, and local legends.
The book shaped how medieval Europeans pictured Asia at a time when reliable information about the continent was scarce. It circulated widely in manuscript form across Europe and later became one of the texts associated with the Age of Exploration, when navigators looked for sea routes to the places Polo had described overland.
