645px-Marco_Polo_-_costume_tartare
Born in 1254, possibly and probably in Venice, Marco Polo was still only 17 when, in 1271, he is believed to have set out on his epic Asian journey with father Niccolo, and uncle, Matteo, returning when Marco was 41, to find Venice at war with Genoa.
Captured and imprisoned, Marco spent his time dictating to a cell-mate, Rustichello da Pisa, an account of his adventures -The Travels of Marco Polo - documenting his Far Eastern travels for Mongol ruler Kublai Khan, which became a European best-seller.
Europeans got their first Asian insights from the book, though doubts about the chronicle, and the truth of the fantastical peoples and places Marco Polo described, have always been voiced. Most believe the Venetian adventurer picked up second-hand stories, cobbling them together with other information scraps for his account.
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Polo claimed to have been a Kublai Khan court emissary, yet his name is missing from surviving Mongol or Chinese records of the time.
Polo, in theory an acute observer of daily life and ritual in China, failed to record the ancient customs of tea drinking, women’s feet binding or, chopsticks, and even the Great Wall fails to get mentioned, absolutely nothing in the Venetian archives suggesting the Polo family ever having direct contact with China.
Copying the contents of a Persian China guide book, written by a Persian merchant, seems a distinct possibility, as the manuscript has minimal amounts of first-person writing, making it likely that the account was more a conglomeration of European Far Eastern knowledge of the time, as several of the words used in the account are not Chinese references at all, but Persian
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.
In 1271, Marco Polo’s father and uncle, both merchants from Europe, were requested to return to China for the second time by the Mongol Emperor, Kublai Khan. The purpose of the request made by the Great Khan (Kublai) was to bring back to the Mongol court some holy oil from Jerusalem and “a hundred men of learning, thoroughly acquainted with the principles of the Christian religion” (Polo 7) to convince the Mongols to convert to Christianity. Marco Polo joined his father and uncle for this second journey to the East. As part of this journey, Polo traveled throughout regions of the Middle East and Central Asia before reaching the final destination. Further, while working for Kublai Khan in China, he was sent on many inspection tours which allowed him to explore most of the provinces of China. In all the regions that were visited along the way, and more so in the case of the Mongol Empire, there was a distinct disparity in the culture as compared to Polo’s native land. Moreover, Marco Polo’s religious disposition towards Christianity set him apart from the people of the region –the Tartars—who , according to the Kublai Khan, where worshippers of “evil spirits” (Polo 7). These factors placed Marco Polo in the position of an “outsider” as defined by Hage, i.e. “someone who does not experience either socio-cultural or political belonging. It is someone whose mental and bodily dispositions have evolved somewhere else and thus feels culturally ‘out of place’.
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler who went on many voyages across Asia and Africa. On one of his travels to Asia, Marco met Kublai Khan and became good friends. His journey to Asia lasted 24 years, and when he arrived back home, he found out that his country was at war with Genoa. Polo then became a prisoner of war and wasn’t released until 1299. Upon his release, Polo became a wealthy merchant with a wife and two kids. Marco died in 1324 and was buried in the San Lorenzo Church.
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant believed to have journeyed across Asia.He first left at age 17 with his dad and uncle.They were traveling upon the silk road.Marco Polo was born in 1254 in italy City-state. He traveled with his family. They journeyed to Europe to Asia 1271 to 1295.
Marco Polo's Travels formulated in Europe of the fourteenth and fifteenth century a new perception of the Eastern world, a world just as advanced and sophisticated as that of the West. Yet, another two centuries were needed for a significant change to take place; this was Christopher Columbus' voyage. For Christopher Columbus, Marco Polo's travelogue was a valuable and solid resource that contained the necessary details of the East. The geographical descriptions in his writing generated a basis for Columbus' scientific calculations for his expedition and the explicit depictions of the luxury of Cipangu and Cathay, flawed though they were, created a strong motivation for Columbus. In the 12th of May 1492, Christopher Columbus, accompanied
Xuanzang was a Buddhist monk who traveled from China to India in order to further his understanding of Buddhist teachings and to bring back Buddhist texts that would help to address problems and holes in Buddhist learning in China. Xuanzang was an outsider; Indian social structure was very different from China, and some parts of the Indian spiritual tradition were very different than the Buddhist tradition of which he was a part. However, he was not a complete outsider in that he was welcomed into and participated in several Buddhist communities in India. Marco Polo was a merchant who traveled to China with his father and uncle and was ultimately employed by Khublai Khan in minor administrative positions in China. He therefore defined himself
A comparison of the travels of both Battuta and Polo show that both men came in contact with great leaders of Eurasia which shaped their travels and lead them to seek control and obtain control over the Mongolian empire now known as China in
Primary Source of Marco Polo Marco Polo is one of the most-well known heroic travelers and traders around the world. He obscured the boundaries between Europe and China as well as East Asia, through his expanded travels, his position at Kublai Khan’s court in China and by the information/products he transported back to Europe. Marco Polo’s first impression was the size, wealth and sophistication of the city. He noticed the physical features, trades, markets and the social relations that were present and prosperous within its neighborhoods. What surprised him was how the city featured a large bathing area (public amenities) and how it included a large number of public baths for people.
(History.com) Ferdinand Magellan was born into a royal and noble bloodline in the year of 1480 in Sabrosa, Portugal. As a young boy Magellan worked in the household of Queen Isabella I of Castile studying and learning about the world and the explorers of his time, increasing his knowledge and yearning for exploration. During Magellan's life, the spice trade was very important to the world. The spice trade increased trade between countries and created a need for explorers like Magellan.
His father, Niccolo, and his uncle, Maffeo, had traveled far in order to practice trade; it was at seventeen years old when Marco Polo joined them on their journey. A vital factor that played into the significance of their travels was the society’s perspective on outside lands during that time. Laurance Bergreen recalls in her book Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu that, “in an uncertain world, thirteenth-century Venetians could feel certain of a few things,” exemplifying the risk of heading East . During this time in the late 1200s the East was referred to as the Mongol Empire. Although Marco Polo was not the first of Europeans to venture through Mongolian territory the European society still lacked knowledge and understanding of cultures in Eastern Asia.
Based on the journals that Marco Polo documented his adventures in, the show created a good adaptation from them. He shared his adventures not only to his countrymen, but to the world. Because of that, he became a significant historical figure for introducing Europe to central Asia and China. I may not become a significant historical figure for traveling around the world, but I will be able to tell of my adventures to my children, grandchildren, and generations to come. This show motivated me to become an example to others, and exhibit that anything is
Unfortunately, He was captured during the fighting and spent a year in a Genoese prison, where as luck would have it, one of his fellow prisoners was a writer of the name Rustichello of Pisa. It is said that only when prompted by Rustichello did Marco Polo share the story of his travels, known in his time as 'The Description of the World' or in some prints 'The Travels of Marco Polo' (Lee, source 3). Marco's account of the vast and unique wealth of China, the might, and mystery of the Mongol empire, and the exotic customs of India and Africa made the book a bestseller quite soon after (Lee, source 3) , not surprising given how landlocked people were back then. The book became one of the most popular commercially written texts in medieval Europe, and the impact of his book on contemporary Europe was truly tremendous, giving people an exciting look at a completely foreign and unique culture from their own. Unfortunately, the book was not held to as high a scholarly standard as perhaps preferred by Marco, known as Il Milione( The Million Lies ) and earning Marco the nickname of "Marco Milione" (lee,source 3) because so few actually believed that his stories were true and most Europeans simply dismissed the book as a pure piece of pulp
Marco Polo was born in 1254 in Venice Italy to a wealthy Merchant family. Since his father traveled a lot and his mother died when he was very young much of Marco’s childhood he was parentless left to be raised by an extended family. Marco Polo’s father Niccolo Polo and Uncle Maffeo Polo were very successful Jewel Merchants with an interest in Constantinople and in Sudak, which was a Venetian colony off the coast of the Crimea. The Polo brother’s travels led them to Asia for most of Marco’s youth
Marco, his father, and his uncle it took like 4 years to get to China. Marco polo stayed in China for 14 years and work there as an advisor to Kublai Khan. Marco is famous for his journeys to Asia that he documented for what he saw something about Kublai Khan. Marco returned from Europe to Asia and got back from 1271 to 1292.
My name is Marco Polo and I am a Venetian merchant and explorer. I have spent most of my life traveling abroad to the exotic land of Asia. During my time abroad, I indulged in rich culture, exquisite cuisine and much more. Welcome to my website where I am able to share the stories of my travels.