Marco Polo ( i/?m?rko? ?po?lo?/; Italian pronunciation: [?marko ?p??lo]; c. 1254 – January 8–9, 1324)[1] was an Italian merchant traveler from the Republic of Venice[2][3] whose travels are recorded in Livres des merveilles du monde, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China.
He learned the mercantile trade from his father and uncle, Niccolo and Maffeo, who traveled through Asia, and apparently 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 three children.
He died in 1324, and was buried in San Lorenzo. His pioneering journey inspired Christopher Columbus[4] and many other travellers. There is a substantial literature based on his writings. Polo influenced European cartography,leading to the introduction of fra Mauro map.
The exact time and place of Marco Polo’s birth are unknown, and current theories are mostly conjectural. One possible place of birth is Venice’s former contrada of San Giovanni Crisostomo, which is often presented by historians as the birthplace, and it is generally accepted that Marco Polo was born in the Venetian Republic with most biographers pointing towards Venice itself as Marco Polo’s home town. [5] Some biographers suggest that Polo was born in Curzola, today known as Korcula in present-day Croatia,[6][7] however there is no proof to this claim. The most quoted specific date of Polo’s birth is somewhere “around 1254”.
Note 2] His father Niccolo was a merchant who traded with the Middle East, becoming wealthy and achieving great prestige. [8][9]Niccolo and his brother Maffeo set off on a trading voyage, before Marco was born. [9] In 1260, Niccolo and Maffeo were residing in Constantinople when they foresaw a political change; they liquidated their assets into jewels and moved away. [8] According to The Travels of Marco Polo, they passed through much of Asia, and met with the Kublai Khan.
[10] Meanwhile, Marco Polo’s mother died, and he was raised by an aunt and uncle. 9] Polo was well educated, and learned merchant subjects including foreign currency, appraising, and the handling of cargo ships,[9] although he learned little or no Latin. [8] Map of the journey In 1269, Niccolo and Maffeo returned to Venice, meeting Marco for the first time. In 1271, during the dogado of Doge Lorenzo Tiepolo, 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 traveled almost 15,000 miles (24,000 km Upon the Polos’ return to Italy, Venice was at war with Genoa. [11] Genoese admiral Lamba D’Oria overwhelmed a Venetian fleet at the Battle of Curzola near the island of Korcula, and Polo was taken prisoner. [11] He spent several months of his imprisonment dictating a detailed account of his travels to a fellow inmate, Rustichello da Pisa,[9] who incorporated tales of his own as well as other collected anecdotes and current affairs from China.
The book soon spread throughout Europe in manuscript form, and became known as The Travels of Marco Polo.It 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. [12] Polo was finally released from captivity in August 1299,[9] 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. 13] They had three daughters, Fantina, Bellela and Moreta 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. 1] He also set free a “Tartar slave” who may have accompanied him from Asia.
[15] 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. 1] 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,[16] 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. [ An authoritative version of Marco Polo’s book does not and cannot exist, for the early manuscripts differ significantly.The published editions of his book either rely on single manuscripts, blend multiple versions together, or add notes to clarify, for example in the English translation by Henry Yule. The 1938 English translation by A.
C. Moule and Paul Pelliot is based on a Latin manuscript found in the library of the Cathedral of Toledo in 1932, and is 50% longer than other versions. [17] Approximately 150 manuscript copies in various languages are known to exist, and before availability of the printing press discrepancies were inevitably introduced during copying and translation. [18] The popular translation published by Penguin Books in 1958 by R.
E. Latham works several texts together to make a readable whole. [19] Polo related his memoirs orally to Rustichello da Pisa while both were prisoners of the Genova Republic. Rustichello wrote The Devisament du Monde in Langues d’Oil, a lingua franca of crusaders and western merchants in the orient.
[20] The idea probably was to create a handbook for merchants, essentially a text on weights, measures and distances The book opens with a preface describing his father and uncle traveling to Bolghar where Prince Berke Khan lived. A year later, they went to Ukek[22] and continued to Bukhara.There, an envoy from Levant invited them to meet Kublai Khan, who had never met Europeans. [23] 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. [24] He also inquired about the Pope and Church in Rome. [25] 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.
[26] 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. [27]Polo wearing a Tartar outfit, age of print unknown. In 1271, Niccolo, 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 a half years after leaving Venice, when Marco was about 21 years old, Khan welcomed the Polos into his palace. 9] The exact date of their arrival is unknown, but scholars estimate it to be between 1271 and 1275.
[Note 3] On reaching the Yuan court, the Polos presented the sacred oil from Jerusalem and the papal letters to their patron. [8] 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;[9] he wrote about many imperial visits to China’s southern and eastern provinces, the far south and Burma. 28] 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, sailed west to the Trincomalee port of Jaffna under Savakanmaindan and to Pandyan of Tamilakkam. Describing the Pandyan kingdom under Lord Emperor Jatavarman Sundara Pandyan I as the richest empire in existence, Polo arrived during the reign of Maravarman Kulasekara Pandyan I, son of Jatavarman Sundara Pandyan I and one of five brother kings on the continent.
[29] Eventually Polo crossed the Arabian Sea to Hormuz. The two-year voyage was a perilous one – of the six hundred people (not ncluding the crew) in the convoy only eighteen had survived (including all three Polos). [30]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. [ Skeptics have wondered if Marco Polo actually went to China or if he perhaps wrote his book based on hearsay.
While Polo describes paper money and the burning of coal, he fails to mention the Great Wall of China, Chinese characters, chopsticks, or footbinding. 31] Yet, if the purpose of Polo’s tales was to impress others with tales of his high esteem for an advanced civilization, then it is possible that Polo shrewdly would omit those details that would cause his listeners to scoff at the Chinese with a sense of European superiority. Besides, Marco lived among the Mongol elite. Foot binding was rare even among Chinese during Polo’s time and almost unknown among the Mongols.
The Great Walls were built to keep out northern invaders, whereas the ruling dynasty during Marco Polo’s visit were those very northern invaders.Researchers note that the Great Wall familiar to us today is a Ming structure built some two centuries after Marco Polo’s travels. The Mongol rulers whom Polo served controlled territories both north and south of today’s wall, and would have no reasons to maintain any fortifications that may have remained there from the earlier dynasties. [32] Other Europeans who traveled to Khanbaliq during the Yuan Dynasty, such as Giovanni de’ Marignolli and Odoric of Pordenone, said nothing about the wall either.
32] Supporters of the book’s basic accuracy have replied in even greater force. University of Tubingen sinologist and historian Hans Ulrich Vogel argued that Polo’s description of paper money and salt production supported his presence in China because he included details which he could not have gotten otherwise. [33] Economic historian Mark Elvin, in his preface to Vogel’s 2013 monograph, concludes that Vogel “demonstrates by specific example after specific example the ultimately overwhelming probability of the broad authenticity” of Polo’s account.Many problems were caused by the oral transmission of the original text and the proliferation of significantly different hand-copied manuscripts.
For instance, did Polo exert “political authority” (seignora) in Yangzhou or merely “sojourn” (sejourna) there. Elvin concludes that “those who doubted, although mistaken, were not always being casual or foolish,” but “the case as a whole had now been closed”: the book is, “in essence, authentic, and, when used with care, in broad terms to be trusted as a serious though obviously not always final, witness
