Invisible Cities In Venice And The Travels Of Marco Polo

Marco Polo was a renowned explorer in the medieval era and he wrote the work in which most of our past understanding of the regions is remembered today. He was born in 1252 in Venice and later deceased in Venice at the age of 70 in 1352. The reason he so is so famous and remembered today is because he reached the farthest on his 24 year journey down the silk road reaching extents of China and Mongolian empire. To begin with Marco Polo was born into a wealthy family who was known for their travels and spread of merchantability already and a young Marco Polo would begin his journey as early as 14-16 Years old. Though his date of birth is unknown and the exact location his family was a big name in the Venice community making it only seem fitting. This paper is going to correlate to the book found in the franciscan library at Saint Bonaventure, “Did Marco Polo Really Go to China” by Dr. Wood; she does a scholarly review questioning whether or not Mr. Polo really carried out the things he said to have done and has he actually visited the regions in which he said he's went too. Before we begin though we cannot fully disprove the veracity of the journey in which Mr. polo took because other explorers have also left out important historical happenings when discovering new regions and cultures. Born in 1254 in Venetian Republic, Marco Polo headed to Asia with his merchant father (weapons trader supposedly as we will later touch on) . He would spend the next 24 years exploring

“Crocicchio” by Ardengo Soffici is a poem written in the era of the historic avant-garde in which Italy was facing a technological revolution; railways, cars and trams were all being transformed and as such the country saw a rise in the Italian Futurist movement. This movement praised all things modern by exploring new forms and technologies, treating them as a spectacle to be revered. The influence of these futuristic ideologies is clear in Crocicchio as Soffici paints a series of pictures of city life characterised by the chaos and activity which he experiences in his passing.

Nowadays the wide array of transportation means and infrastructures at our disposal has made it relatively easy for us to travel from one country to another; even when those countries are thousands of miles away from each other. However, during the 13th and 14th centuries, travelling was not that easy. Yet, two men, the Italian tradesman Marco Polo and the Moroccan Jurist Ibn Battuta became famous for having managed to perform extremely long distance journeys away from their home country. At the end of their long travels, both men shared their experiences with the world via the books, The Travels of Marco Polo and The Travels of Ibn Battuta. An analysis of those two texts reveals two things. On one hand, Marco Polo remained a cultural

Next is the evidence provided by the works from their methodology. For The Travels of Marco Polo, the evidence for Polo’s conclusions are his own experiences while in China. Therefore, Polo’s work provided Europe a more unfiltered and objective view of China in all its extravagance to Polo and later the Europeans. This unfiltered view point meant that Polo was inaccurate in some of his information. When describing Kublai Khan’s palace, Polo remarked how large the walls are and how extravagant and magnificent it was. The palace itself was in fact just an enclosed royal park used as an encampment. Polo’s observations and vocabulary used to describe the palace showed that European’s viewed China and what they did in awe, even when the Chinese were acting similar to the Europeans in many aspects.

Source: Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant who may have worked for the Yuan dynasty, the Mongol rulers of China, late 13th century. This excerpt is a description of Hangzhou, a southern city that was part of the Yuan empire.

According to Marco Polo’s book, The Travels of Marco Polo, Quanzhou, a charming and quiet country had a great abundance of supplies for life’s necessities. (Doc A) This is significant because it vividly describes the daily life of Quanzhou, where citizens enjoyed a peaceful and quiet life; where a main reason that Quanzhou has such an abundance of necessities is due to all of the goods brought into the port. This supports that the cultural world was most affected by Quanzhou as a site of encounter because the citizens of Quanzhou were able to live a peaceful life, not having to worry about a lack of food or water etc. In his book, The Travels of Marco Polo, Marco Polo said that throughout Quanzhou, there was only one language and one kind of writing used but due to all of the foreign trade, there were many local differences of dialect. (Doc A) This is important because being a site of encounter exposed Quanzhou to many foreign countries in which the foreigners settled into the Quanzhou and spoke their own language; which created a language variety in this city. With such a variety of language located in this city, many native Chinese were able to learn the foreign languages where if they ever left China, they are able to communicate. In addition, knowing all these languages expanded the average Chinese

The geography of the town of Guadelupe from the book Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya is immensely symbolic. After Lupito was murdered at the river, Antonio becomes “afraid of the awful presence of the river, which was the soul of the river” (15). The water conveys the impurity of the town it surrounds and at the same time, it symbolizes the cleansing of nefarious acts and thoughts of the town’s people. The river also illustrates how life continues to flow no matter the case. However, Antonio comprehends that the town’s detrimental avocations will soon reach his family when he reveals to himself that “the innocence which our isolation sheltered could not last forever” (20). Their isolation restrains the corrupt ways of the city and its people.

As Antonio and his son Bruno undertake a desperate search through Rome, De Sica charts a geography of poverty. We see alleyways, overflowing soup kitchen, and brothel neighborhood, and everywhere hordes unemployed men whose frustration gives the film an urgent energy. In a way, it could be said that Rome and its various neighborhood serve as pseudo-characters in the film. Beginning from the

To begin, in the first part of the story, a city called Omelas and its inhabitants are described as one happy community, but a negative connotation on the city and its people is implied as the story progresses.”They

Many children, including myself, have once played the game Marco Polo. Although, I have always been curious, who exactly is Marco Polo? My fascination of Marco Polo warped into a fixation of his travels. Marco Polo was born in Venice in the year 1254. His father, Nicolo, and his uncle, Maffeo, were merchants who had seats in the great nobleman council of Venice (Polo IV). According to his records, he had traveled thousands of miles with his father and uncle.

LeGuin’s description of Omelas engages all of one’s senses through her usage of rich visual, auditory and tactile imagery to ‘prove’ to the reader that Omelas is undeniably a utopia. The city of Omelas can be described as a place in which the inhabitants’ senses are constantly overwhelmed by sensations which are pleasing to their eyes, beautiful to their ears and sweet to their tongues. The unchanging state of this society which is surrounded constantly by sensory delight can be found in these descriptions; for instance, the “child of nine or ten [who] sits at the edge of the crowd, alone, playing on a wooden flute […] he never ceases playing” (LeGuin 275). In addition to the wooden flute, LeGuin describes, “a shimmering of gong and tambourine” (LeGuin 273). Following the narrator’s stunning description of everything which makes Omelas a utopia, her statement that the reader may, if he pleases, “add an orgy” in order to make the Omelas less “goody-goody,” makes it apparent that Omelas in many ways does not have to be concrete and limited to the previously provided descriptions. Her aim is not to describe a particular city, although it is named and its characteristics are already expressed, but to present the idea of a perfect city, a utopia in which bliss is fixed, and good fortune is wholly

Marco Polo was a 13th century Venetian merchant explorer who is said to have traveled with his father and uncle to the Far East lands of China, Mongolia, India, and others. During this time the Mongols, known as the Golden Horde, were in control of much of Asia. Although this power was beginning to dissolve by the time the Polos’ set off on this journey, it was seen clearly that the Mongols still held power in the region. The Mongol leader, Khubilai Kahn, was a glistening example of this power (Jackson, 1998). Polo is said to have served under him as an envoy for a time before his return to Venice. While in Venice, after being captured by the Genoese during a small conflict between the Genoese and the Venetians, Polo and his Ghostwriter, Rustichello da Pisa, wrote his memoirs, The Travels of Marco Polo. This manuscript is a

Italo Calvino’s extraordinary story, Invisible Cities is a literary accomplishment. Invisible Cities contains of an impressive display of discussions between Marco Polo, the legendary Venetian explorer, and Kublai Khan, the famous Conqueror. The two settled in Kublai Khan’s garden and Marco Polo details, or for all one knows invents, depictions of several wonderful cities. Considering these cities are not ever actually seen, yet only recounted, they are unnoticeable to the emperor. In consideration of the fact that they might not actually exist, they may be truly obscure to all but the reader, who is captivated by the dazzling, foreboding input of Marco Polo. “If I tell you that the city toward which my journey tends is discontinuous in space and time now scattered, now more condensed, you must not believe the search for it can stop. Perhaps while we speak, it is rising, scattered, within the confines of your empire…” (164). The main topic is Marco Polo and the cities he has traveled, or one city in several structures. These expeditions involve cities of memory, trading cities, cities of desire, thin cities, continuous cities and of the sky. The outcome is an intensely intriguing achievement of literature that urges surpassing the borders of the fictional book. Between these enlightening depictions of unfamiliar settings, Calvino allows his readers to indulge in the discussion between two men, one in the middle of his career, the other in

The “City of God” is an eloquently written challenge, from Saint Augustine, for human society to choose which city it wishes to be a part of, the city of God or the city of man. As described by Augustine, the city of God is a metaphorical place where the citizens love, glorify, worship, and praise God. They find their strength and authority through mutual servitude with Yahweh. This city is then compared to the earthly city where the people love themselves, glorify themselves, find strength in themselves, and worship themselves or created things. The earthly city seeks praise from people and strives for domination. These two cities are the crux of Augustine’s novel which entails people to be worthy citizens of the City of Heaven, despite the devastating fall of Rome. Many people questioned whether Christianity was at fault for Rome’s demise, claiming that the pagan gods were angry that Christianity became the dominant religion in Rome, thus the pagan gods were thought to have left, leaving Rome vulnerable to attack. Thereby, Augustine sets out to dispute these beliefs by stating that God initiated all of creation, and in such a grand plan, the fall of Rome is rather insignificant. The more important issue is to choose a life in the city of man or the city of God, of which Augustine marks the parameters with compelling metaphors that beg the reader to choose the everlasting city because it provides the achievement of peace, the achievement of a purposeful ending, and the

So dehydrated are the people that they are hallucinating, seeing people who are not there,(‘Who is the third who walks always beside you?’ ) There is the same stagnation that characterises the previous scenes; ‘dry sterile thunder without rain.’ There is an air of menace as ‘red sullen faces sneer and snarl/from doors of mudcracked houses ’ and this menace is realised as the cities of Jerusalem, Athens, Alexandria, Vienna and London