Marco Polo in Yuan China

EXPANDED BACKGROUND: Marco Polo was born in the thirteenth century (1254 A.D.) in Venice. He had the standard education for a young gentleman — knowledge of classical authors and the basic beliefs of the church, a good grasp of French and Italian, and skills in accounting. This combination is fortunate for us, since his writings offer a window onto the world of the thirteenth century. His knowledge of culture and business made Marco Polo very observant of humans, animals, and plants, as well as anything that might touch upon commercial opportunities. He was observant about cultures that were very different from his own and able to describe them without too much bias.

European nations and city-states at this time were very much divided, vigorously competing with one another for power and markets. The Venetians were probably the most aggressive of all. Young Marco Polo was born into a powerful Venetian merchant family with extensive trade contacts. The Polos had traveled as far as the Black Sea, in present-day Turkey. There they heard from Persian traders about the great Mongol empire that stretched west to today's Poland, east to Java and Korea, south to Turkey and Persia, and north to the frozen wastelands of Siberia. Marco Polo's father and uncle traveled in 1260 throughout the Mongol empire, all the way to its capital in China. There they requested trade and missionary contacts. And on a second trip in 1271, carrying messages from the Pope, they took along young Marco, who was then only seventeen years old.

Marco was a shrewd businessman who won the Mongol emperor's favor and was sent on special missions all over the region. His stay in China lasted seventeen years, and by the time he returned home to Venice in 1297, twenty-six years had passed since his departure. On his return, Marco, a superb storyteller, was persuaded to write his memoirs. Relying on notes and memories he had stored during his years abroad, he set down his tale, entitled "The Travels of Marco Polo, or, A Description of the World." The book was written with the help of a romance-novel writer and expert in chivalry and its lore, Rustichello of Pisa, and it has been called one of the greatest ever written and may have inspired many Europeans to explore the world. Document #1 is an excerpt from Marco’s famous book.