Marco Polo was born in the thirteenth century (1254 A.D.) in Venice, an Italian city-state, and he was very much a man of his time. 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 much bias. European nations and city-states …show more content…
The World Marco Polo Knew The Europe that Marco Polo knew was a collection of small nations and city-states constantly competing with one another. In the north the French empire was the strongest. To the east, northern German and Baltic city-states were united in a loose federation called the Hanseatic League. Scandinavian countries were relatively weak. In the south, southern German states were only loosely united and the Italian citystates were fiercely competitive, with Genoa and Venice especially bitter rivals. (After Marco Polo returned to Venice from China, he participated in a sea battle between Venice and Genoa. He was captured and imprisoned in Genoa, and it was during his imprisonment that he dictated his book.) Nearly all states were involved in wars with one anoother. Either the religious organization — the Roman Catholic Church — or the political entity — the Holy Roman Empire — could have been a unifying force, but they also were also locked in competition for power. In Asia Minor, the power of the Byzantine empire was in decline, and the power of the Turkish Ottoman Empire was increasing. In addition, Europe was still involved in its own Holy War against the "infidels" — the Crusades. By contrast, the Mongol empire presented for a brief time in the thirteenth century a model of unity. A loose federation of separate nomadic tribes in most times, the
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
The introduction of the spanish discoverers revealed how the native americans’ lives would be changed due to enslavement, forced religion, and the destruction of their homes. If it wasn’t for the story of Marco Polo “visiting” the Indies describing the place as a heaven on earth, the place were incredible riches are stored, where there are villages of gold, then there would never have been an interest in finding a new trade route. Which never would have brought about the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus, it also would have never brought the hardships, tragedy, and utter genocide of the native americans.
Prior to the rise of the Mongol empire and their invasion of Russia, was a time of violence. Mongolia separated by tribes and provinces was a non-unified empire with little impact to Central Asia. Being separated, feuds between provinces of power and money were the reason why Mongolia remained separated. The provinces after a long a grueling process eventually became united by a
Mongol had a centralized form of political system. Political authority was centralized in the hands of the highest ruler. These powers were developed from Yen and Yan principles. Genghis Khan, the leader who united the tribes, followed the Shamanist principles that that lobbied for the give and take policy. The kingdom exercised a sense of democracy. They had the Council of Wiseman and the Great Khurultai,
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
The Mongols were nomadic pastoralists who originated in the Eurasian steppes but eventually conquered the largest contiguous empire in history. The first ruler Genghis Khan was able to unite the loosely-bound nomadic clans in 1206 AD and begin seizing land through ingenious military tactics such as base-10 warrior organization, trickery, and terror. Later, his grandson Kublai Khan continued conquering new land and adding it to their vast yet relatively decentralized government. Although there were a few positive effects of Mongol rule, they still had an overall negative impact on Eurasia because of the large quantities of deaths they caused and their weakening of Chinese power in their own government.
Although Marco Polo started out as a humble merchant from Venice, he eventually developed a reputation as one of the world’s greatest explorers (“Marco Polo”). He was much more than just a trader however, providing the Western world with detailed accounts of the foreign society that was Medieval China under the Mongol conquest. These accounts would later become invaluable to historians for centuries to come.
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions, Andres Dorantes, Alonzo del Castillo Maldonado, and Estevan were the sole survivors of a four hundred men expedition. The group of them went about the friendly Indian tribes preforming miracles of healing, with the power of Christianity. At one time five sick persons were brought into the camp, and the Indians insisted that Castillo should cure them. At sunset he pronounced a blessing over the sick, and all the Christians united in a prayer to God, asking him to restore the sick to health, and on the following morning there was not a sick person among them. De Vaca and his companions reached the Pacific coast where the Indians, showed signs of civilization, living in houses covered with straw, wearing cotton clothes and dressed skins, with belts and ornaments of stone, and cultivating their fields, but had been driven therefrom by the brutal Spanish soldiery and had taken refuge in the mountains, de Vaca and his comrades, being regarded as emissaries from the Almighty, exercised such power over these untutored savages that, at their bidding, the Indians returned to their deserted habitations, and began again to cultivate their fields, the assurance being given them by de Vaca and his companions that henceforth they would
All in all, this article expanded my current knowledge of the Mongol Empire because it demonstrates that the complexities and integration of government was used in the hope of strengthening and prolonging the
In the 1500s and the 1600s there were many explorers, Samuel De Champlain was one of them. He was an explorer of the “New World.”
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.
The Mongols were nomadic people that lived in tribes in Asia during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The joining of numerous tribes would eventually form one of the biggest empires in history. With the lack of rain though the region, the Mongols did not have wide spread agriculture, instead they would herd sheep, cattle, goats, horses, and camels that thrived on the grasses and shrubs of the steppe lands where they lived. The Mongol tribes would travel with their herds to lands with copious amounts of grasses so their animals could graze. When their herds exhausted the vegetation, they would migrate to a new area. The tribes were self-sufficient, they not only lived off the meat, milk, and
The start of the Mongol Empire began as a system of nomadic pastoralists who were extremely well experienced horsemen and traveled with their flocks of sheep, goats, cattle, and horses over the vast steppes of the prairielands of Central Asia. At the start of the Mongols rise to supremacy was the formation of tribal coalition known as “All the Mongols” (Saunders 1971) While the early tribal coalition was successful at establishing itself as a power in Manchuria and North China, it wasn’t until the rise of a well-known figure did the Mongols ascend to a force to fear and respect. That
People inhabited towns and cities along the Silk Road because of the trade and steady resources. The soil was ideal for their agriculture products, cotton being a popular product. The inhabitants would sell their products to travelers. People also sold temporary housing for
“I have not told half of what I saw” were the final words of the great Venetian explorer Marco Polo; however, in recent times, Marco Polo’s exploits have been doubted more and more. (Pedriali, 161) Most often cited as evidence that Marco Polo’s travels may not have been as truthful as reported is the 1998 book Did Marco Polo go to china? by Dr. Frances Wood. Through new research done by Dr. Hans Ulrich Vogel of University of Tübingen in Germany, it has been shown that Marco Polo was mostly truthful in his memoirs, but it has also proven that some things were exaggerated thanks to his ghostwriter Rustichello da Pisa, Marco Polo himself, or later copyists.