Marco Polo

Marco Polo was a merchant from the Republic of Venice who spent roughly two decades in Asia in the late thirteenth century, much of it in the service of the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan. The book of his travels, dictated in a Genoese prison, gave medieval Europeans their fullest picture of China and the wider East, and it shaped maps and explorers for centuries.

Marco was born around 1254, probably in Venice, though no record of his birth survives. His father Niccolò and uncle Maffeo were traders who had left before he was born; according to his book they crossed Asia and met Kublai, who sent them back with a letter to the pope. When they reached Venice in 1269, Marco was about fifteen and met his father for the first time. His mother had died, and he had learned the practical skills of a merchant rather than much Latin.

In 1271 the three Polos set out, carrying letters from the newly elected Pope Gregory X. They went by sea to Acre and overland towards the Persian port of Hormuz, then, finding the ships there unsafe, continued along the Silk Road across Central Asia. About three and a half years after their departure they arrived at Kublai's summer palace at Shangdu, in the Yuan dynasty that the Mongols had founded in China. Marco was about twenty-one.

By his own account Marco won Kublai's favour, learned several languages, and was sent on missions across China and to lands to the south, including present-day Myanmar. He described cities, trade, salt production and paper money in detail. Some manuscripts say he governed the city of Yangzhou for three years, a claim many historians doubt; the sinologist Paul Pelliot suggested he may instead have held a post in the salt administration there. The Polos stayed about seventeen years, as Kublai was reluctant to let them go.

Around 1291 they were finally allowed to leave, escorting Kököchin, a Mongol noblewoman promised as a bride to the ruler of the Ilkhanate in Persia. According to the book, the fleet sailed by way of Sumatra and southern India, and only a handful of the hundreds of passengers survived. After reaching Persia the Polos travelled overland to the Black Sea and home, arriving in Venice in 1295. Venice was then at war with Genoa, and Marco was captured, probably in a skirmish off Anatolia in 1296. In prison he dictated his story to a fellow captive, the romance writer Rustichello da Pisa. Released in 1299, he became a prosperous merchant, married Donata Badoèr in 1300, and had daughters. He died in Venice in January 1324 and was buried at the church of San Lorenzo.

No single authoritative text exists: about 150 manuscripts survive, and they differ considerably. Doubts about Marco's account began in his own lifetime and continue today. Sceptics note that he does not mention the Great Wall, tea or footbinding, and that no Chinese record clearly names him. In 1995 the historian Frances Wood argued that he may never have gone further than Persia or the Black Sea. Other scholars, among them Stephen Haw, Igor de Rachewiltz and David Morgan, reject that view, pointing to details of currency, salt revenues and the princess's voyage that are confirmed by Chinese and Persian sources. Many historians accept that he went to China while allowing that he, or Rustichello, exaggerated and made errors.

The book influenced European geography, as seen in the Catalan Atlas and in Fra Mauro's world map, and was read by Christopher Columbus.

Our 1279 and 1300 maps show the Yuan dynasty and the other Mongol khanates across which the Polos travelled.