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Marco Polo: the “traveller”
who left an indelible mark on the world
by Adalia Bernicia
Marco Polo’s Million is the most precious compendium that the Middle Ages left us before the discovery of America. Marco Polo was the Venetian explorer who left us precious testimonies regarding the territories of the East before the discovery of America and the subsequent era of great explorations.
Marco Polo and the journey that marked his life
The explorer belonged to a typical lagoon family, originally from Šibenik, Dalmatia. He belonged to the upper middle class. He was the son and grandson of merchants from whom he learned most of the trade secrets. At 17, the young Marco Polo undertook a long journey with his two family members. A fundamental journey in his life. A journey that left his name in history.
The two family members precisely encouraged the young Marco to embark on a career as a trader abroad. They had already reached the lands of the East, establishing their markets first in Constantinople, then in Soldaia and Crimea. They met the great Qubilai, conqueror and unifier of China, obtaining fruitful privileges and probable noble dignity.
He was an Italian traveller, writer, ambassador and merchant
Marco Polo was born in 1254 in Venice to a patrician family of wealthy merchants, originally from Sebenico in Dalmatia. More or less in those years – it is not known whether his father Niccolò and his uncle Matteo left on a trading trip to the East before or after his birth. They first settled in the capital of the Latin Empire, Constantinople, then in Soldaia, in Crimea, where around 1280, Mark, the Elder (the older brother), in partnership with Matteo and Niccolò, founded a business company.
On their journey, the Polo brothers reached the court of the great Qubilai, the conqueror and unifier of China, and during their first stay (1265), they obtained important privileges and probably also the Mongolian noble dignity.
In 1269, when his father and uncle returned to Venice, Marco was fifteen years old, and a little later, still a young man, probably in the spring or summer of 1271, he left with them for China, where he remained for about twenty-five years.
After leaving San Giovanni d’Acre in November of that same year, around May 1275, the Polos arrived at the court of Qubilai. Here Marco, after having fulfilled the task entrusted to him by the emperor of inspecting the regions on the border of Tibet and Yün-nan, is elevated to the dignity of “messenger” a title that links him directly to the figure of the sovereign, of which he becomes an informant and personal ambassador to all the peoples of the empire. And with this title, precisely, Marco is mentioned in the Milione.
During his entire stay at the Mongolian court, on behalf of the Great Khan, Marco will carry out administrative activities, long and delicate embassies and prestigious diplomatic assignments, making several trips for this purpose. Among the many tasks entrusted to him, it is worth mentioning his appointment in 1278 as governor of Hang-chou, already the capital of the Mangi kingdom under the Sung dynasty.
In 1292, the Polos set sail from the port of Zaitun and began the journey back to their homeland by sea, which would end in 1295. In that same year, in one of the many naval battles that took place between the Venetians and Genoese in the Mediterranean eastern and in the Italian seas, Marco falls prisoner of the Genoese. Between 1298 and 1299, right in the prisons of Genoa, he dictated his travel report, Le Divisament du Monde, to his fellow prisoner, Rustichello da Pisa. The book will soon be known by the title of Milione, from the nickname of the entire Polo lineage.
Once the peace between the Venetians and the Genoese was ratified, Marco was freed on July 1, 1299, and returned to Venice, where he married Donata (probably from the Loredano family), with whom he had three daughters.
When we look at the works of medieval geographers or examine maps of the time, we come across a fact that will surprise us all: Northern Asia, China, and much of the Indian subcontinent were not visible then; that is, they were unknown.
It was necessary to wait until the end of the 13th century for the mystery that hovered over those lands to be finally revealed. This is thanks to a text that appeared for the first time in ancient French with the title of Devisement du Monde, which today everyone knows as Il Milione. The prose writer Rusticillo da Pisa rearranged and put down on paper the memories and travel notes of a young Venetian, Marco Polo, who reached the court of Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan.
Thus, Marco Polo was not only the Venetian traveller of the Middle Ages who discovered China along the Silk Road, but he also left his mark on the world by describing the first to tell the magic of the East between reality and fantasy in his travel report, The Million.
To understand the value of Marco Polo’s historical feat in the conditions of that day, we must take a time machine and go to the medieval period. Sit in your seats and fasten your seat belts. Are we ready? Let’s start our journey through time.
This 15th century miniature reconstructs the moment Marco Polo leaves Venice
Year: 1254… The month is September… September 15th… The place is Venice… On a day of cold breeze, a cry was heard from the house of the esteemed merchant Niccolò. Marco cried as soon as he was born, as if he wanted to make his voice heard by the world. But no one listened to that scream except his family. Because, at that time, Europe looked eastward with great excitement and horror. Timuçin, who defeated his rivals, took the name of Genghis Khan in 1206, which means “Sovereign of the Universe”, and the tribes, who became increasingly passionate about the accession to the throne of their leaders, began to move their refuges beyond the steppes of Mongolia. The rapidly expanding Mongols had reached southern Russia.
Starting in 1236, the Mongols focused more on the West and Europe. After a series of campaigns full of defeats, plundering and attacks, the Mongols conquered modern Ukraine and Poland, conquered Kyiv in 1240 and advanced towards Krakow the following year. After capturing Hungary, the road to Austria was opened. They reached the East of Vienna. Rumours of Mongol raids and the invincibility of the soldiers surrounded Europe. It was in such a situation that Marco Polo was born.
Born lucky
Marco was lucky. His father, Niccolò, owned a commercial company importing products from the East, doing business with his brothers. One base of the family business was in Constantinople, the other in the Black Sea, where the Polo brothers lived most of the time, while their wives and children lived in Venice. Constantinople was one of the essential trading bases of his father, Niccolò, and his uncle Maffeo, where his older brother Marco worked. His intermediaries worked from the Volga River to Bukhara. It was in Bukhara that Niccolò and Maffeo, demonstrating diplomatic mastery, met Kublai Khan’s dignitaries and organized a trip to his palace in Shangdu.
If the young Marco managed to undertake the initiative that would make him famous, we owe it to the fact that his father and uncle, who arrived in China in 1266, managed to be welcomed by Kublai. When they returned to their homeland, they were no longer straightforward merchants but special envoys of the Khan, charged with setting up an embassy for the bishop. This is a delicate task sealed by the receipt of safe conduct, the “golden board” called paiza in Chinese and gerega in Mongolian. This document allowed them to move freely, both to and fro, throughout all lands under Mongol control. Therefore, in 1271, when Niccolò and Matteo set off towards the celestial empire together with the young Marco, who was 17 years old at the time, they knew that all their fortune would also depend on the outcome of this mission.
Searching for rubies in the Badakhshan mountains. Miniature from Marco Polo’s Book of Wonders
The adventure begins
After leaving Venice, the Polos reached Konya, the Turkish city of Anatolia, already the seat of a sultanate and frequented mainly by Genoese merchants; from there, they touched Kayseri, better known as Caesarea of Cappadocia, where for the first time Marco Polo met the nomadic Seljuk people who, unlike the other fringe of the Ottoman family, had preserved their ancient customs. They landed in Acre, in the Holy Land, in April 1272. They then moved inland, following an itinerary that took them through eastern Anatolia and Armenia. It was probably in 1272 that the Venetians bypassed Lake Van and entered the high lands of Greater Armenia, dominated by Mount Ararat, where biblical tradition said Noah’s ark rested. From Caesarea, the caravan route turned south to Erzurum and Tabriz in Persia. In this critical hub, merchandise from India converged and then to Qazvin, not far from present-day Tehran. Then, head towards the Iranian plateau to reach the Strait of Hormuz and embark for China.
During this first part of the journey through the Near East, the three travelled by land, alone or joining some caravan. Since Il Milione is an account of what was seen and heard during the journey, we need to find out how the Polos related to the local populations. However, it is very likely that, by the previous experience of Niccolò and Matteo, they resorted to guides who knew the local languages and to officials of the lands subject to the authority of the Great Khan, whose support was guaranteed by the presence of safe conduct.
Noah’s ark on a great mountain
The information on these first stages in the interior of Asia is often fascinating: “In this great Erminia is Noah’s ark on a great mountain,” writes Mark, referring to the mythical Mount Ararat, on which the ark is said to have run aground. at the end of the universal flood. But there is no shortage of curious discoveries either.
A fountain with lots of oil
Not far from that biblical mountain, there was a source of oil, probably bitumen, which local populations had exploited since time immemorial. Il Milione Marco reports an interesting description: “In this border, there is a fountain, where so much oil flows and in such abundance that 100 ships can load it at a time. But he is not good for eating, but good for burning.” In fact, according to the Venetian, the place’s fame was such that men came from long ago.
Iraq: Cloths of silk and gold
The explorer also describes in great detail the territory of present-day Iraq. It is a precious insight into the people who lived there, the languages spoken, the habits and customs. Like the famous description of the kingdom of Mosul, a city famous for “cloths of silk and gold”. Marco almost certainly refers to muslin, a wonderful and light fabric that made the fortune of local merchants and originated from northern Iraq. The Venetian was also fascinated by the fact that a substantial Christian community lived in the region but whose beliefs were not “as the Church of Rome commands”. A little further on in the text, Baudac (Baghdad) is mentioned. It is a vast city, crossed by “a huge river ‘, the Tigris,’ through which you can go all the way to the Indian Sea, and therefore merchants and their merchandise come and go”.
In the heart of Asia
The three also travelled to Persia and through the wild mountains, then arriving in Tabriz, a city in the north-west of the country, where they were fascinated by “the sovereign carpets of the world and the most beautiful”. The passage mentions the city of Sheba, where the tombs of the wise men who went to “worship God when he was born” are said to be found. The three wise men are “in a beautiful tomb, and still intact with beards and hair”. That unexpected discovery aroused the curiosity of the young Marco, who asked the locals for information several times, but “no one could tell him anything, except that they were three kings buried in ancient times”.
The Silk Road: Yazd Kerman and Hormuz
After Tabriz, the three stopped in Yazd, described as a beautiful and prosperous city thanks to the cloth of gold and silk, and in Kerman, where “the best and most flying falcons in the world” were bred. There, they learned that no seaworthy vessel was available in Hormuz. He forced them to continue overland through the Dash-e-Lut desert, Afghanistan and the Panjshir Valley. From here, following an extended branch of the Silk Road, they later reached the Wakhan, which extended into Chinese territory. The crossing of the terrible Pamir chain lasted an excellent forty days, which allowed them to reach the Tarim basin – the current region of Xinjiang, a territory at the edge of the world rediscovered by Western explorers only in the 19th century.
Precious stones and rubies
The Venetian mentions that he was forced to stop for a specific time in the Balasciam mountains (present-day Badakhshan in Afghanistan) to recover from an illness. It was a land rich in precious stones called balance, a variety of rubies extracted in large quantities but forbidden to export under penalty of death.
The custom of women to wear unusually shaped breeches
The stop allowed the young man to focus on some details of the local population, such as the custom of women to wear unusually shaped breeches. A custom that the author himself explains is like this: “And they do this to appear as if they have big buttocks because their men delight in big women.”
Kublai Khan’s summer residence
The crossing of the Taklamakan desert awaited them along a track that wound through the commercial cities of Kashgar, Kotan and Cherchen. Then, the journey continued through the Gobi desert. It took more than a month of travel, but in the end, they found themselves in the presence of the fabulous Shangdu – the mythical Xanadu -Kublai Khan’s summer residence built a few years earlier north of Beijing. After three and a half years of vicissitudes, the Venetians had finally arrived in China.
The painter Tranquillo Cremona thus imagined the meeting between the Venetians and Kublai.
Niccolò: “He is your man and my son”
When they were received at court with all the honours, they could not help but admire in ecstasy the richness and splendour of that palace “of marble and other rich stones”, whose rooms and rooms were “all gilded”. The audience with Kublai was one of the most critical moments in Marco’s life, as he explains: “He ‘Kublai’ made them get up ‘the Polos’ and showed great joy, and asked who the young man with them was.”. Niccolò replied: “He is your man and my son”. Then Kublai agreed: “He is welcome, and I like him very much.”
For the young Marco, now twenty-one years old, the doors of that immense country opened at the Khan’s court, which, in a short time, he would end up knowing by heart. Having learned languages very quickly – it seems he knew four – he was soon appointed a government official. This privilege allowed him to participate in essential missions in every corner of the empire, from Tibet to Burma and Cochinchina to India. By Kublai’s will, the Polos remained in China for almost 17 years until 1292, when the Great Khan permitted them to return to their homeland.
In a miniature from the 15th century, Polos are depicted leaving the presence of Kublai Khan.
Finally, they set sail for the Persian Gulf in a fleet of 14 junks. Thus began a sea voyage. Then they touched the ports of India and Ceylon, which Marco Polo demonstrated that he knew well, having already gone there during a previous government mission. After 18 months, the fleet finally arrived in Hormuz. They would spend another year and a half in Persia before undertaking the last part of the journey that would take them back to their homeland after a stop in Constantinople. It was 1295, and the Polos had been missing from Venice for 24 years.
Marco Polo’s work also inspired travellers who would follow in his footsteps, go to China, and bring back much new information. This information piqued Europe’s curiosity about the rest of the world as it moved into the Renaissance and Age of Discovery in the 1400s.
In 1557, Ming Dynasty rulers in China allowed the Portuguese to establish a permanent settlement in Macau. This also paved the way for the missionary activity of the Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci in China. His deep knowledge of the country allowed him and other Jesuits to explain Chinese beliefs and traditions to the West. The cultural bridge that Marco Polo, his father and his uncle had begun to build two centuries earlier continued to connect East and West.
Until his death, the Venetian traveller will deal with his uncle Matteo with business and commerce and, above all, with the diffusion of his book. We know that in August 1307, he delivered a copy of the Milione to Thibault de Cepoy to be delivered to Charles of Valois, brother of the King of France Philip the Fair. In addition to Charles of Valois, the Portuguese infant Don Pedro and numerous nobles and princes obtained copies. The book, soon popularized, circulated in more or less faithful Tuscan versions and enjoyed considerable success from the early fourteenth century.
On 9 January 1324, Marco signed his will, a will which, together with other documents, attests to how the Polo properties were, in reality, more limited than the beautiful riches that were usually attributed to them. The family’s modest house confirms this in today’s Corte Seconda del Milion.
The “nobilis vir Marchus Paulo Milioni” (as the illustrious traveller is called in a document from 1305) died in Venice in 1324.
At the entrance to Corte Seconda del Milion, in Calle della seta, a plaque placed above the entrance to the Silk Office with the initials of the prosecutors next to them with their heraldic coats of arms reminds us that “in these houses, attributed to the cult of Thalia (comedy), were the home of Marco Polo, a Venetian patrician, illustrious for the fame of his travels.
On the canal behind Marco Polo’s houses, with the restoration of the Malibran Theater in 1881, a plaque was placed in memory of where the Polo houses once stood.
Spanish edition of Marco Polo’s Travels, dated 1503. The Venetian merchant is depicted at top left.