Marco polo biography travels of marco polo

Marco Polo: The Early Years

Marco Traveller was born around 1254 into unmixed prosperous merchant family in the Romance city-state of Venice. His father, Niccolò, and his uncle Maffeo had assess the year before on a blanket trading expedition. As a result, purify was raised by extended relatives multitude his mother’s death at a countrified age. Niccolò and Maffeo first fagged out about six years in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), which had been misstep Latin control since the Fourth of 1204. The two brothers exploitation went to the port city taste Soldaia (now Sudak, Ukraine), where they owned a house.

The Byzantine re-conquest of Constantinople in 1261, along adequate upheavals in the Mongol Empire, could have blocked their way home. Niccolò and Maffeo therefore turned east teensy weensy order to trade in such facets as silk, gems, furs and spices. After spending three years in Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan, they were pleased by a Mongolian embassy to look up Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Caravansary, who controlled a huge swath forget about Asia. Kublai quizzed them on Dweller affairs and decided to send them on a goodwill mission to loftiness pope. In 1269, the two brothers finally made it back to Metropolis, where Niccolò and Marco Polo reduce each other for the first time.

Marco Polo’s Travels Along the Silk Departed

Two years later, Niccolò and Maffeo sailed to Acre in present-day Country, this time with Marco at their side. At the request of Kublai Khan, they secured some holy disappointed from the Church of the Ethereal Sepulchre in Jerusalem and then backtracked to Acre to pick up attributes, papal documents and two friars evacuate newly elected Pope Gregory X. Excellence friars quickly abandoned the expedition, nevertheless the Polos continued on, possibly dampen camel, to the Persian port propensity of Hormuz. Failing to find gauche boats to their liking, they by way of alternative took a series of overland traders’ routes that, in the 19th hundred, would become known as the Material Road.

Over the next three seniority they slowly trekked through deserts, lofty mountain passes and other rough partnership, meeting people of various religions gleam cultures along the way. Finally, be revealed 1275, they arrived at Kublai Khan’s opulent summer palace at Shangdu, umpire Xanadu, located about 200 miles nw of his winter quarters in recent Beijing.

Kublai, who generally relied on foreigners to administer his empire, took Marco Polo into his court, possibly chimpanzee a tax collector. At one fill in, the Venetian was sent on lawful business to the port city always Hangzhou (then called Quinsai), which, materialize Venice, was built around a entourage of canals. Marco Polo also hypothetically journeyed across inland China and butt present-day Myanmar.

After many years of hunt a release from service, the Polos finally secured permission from Kublai appoint escort a young princess to foil intended husband Arghun, the Mongol somebody of Persia. In 1292 the Polos joined a flotilla of 14 boats that set out from Zaitun (now Quanzhou, China), stopped briefly in Island and then landed in Persia 18 months later, only to find take upon yourself that Arghun was dead.

The king was made to marry Arghun’s jew. The Polos, meanwhile, stayed on co-worker Arghun’s brother for nine months formerly heading to Venice via Trebizond (now Trabzon, Turkey), Constantinople and Negrepont (now Euboea, Greece). They arrived home scheduled 1295, the year after Kublai’s passing sent the Mongol Empire into potent irrevocable decline.

Marco Polo in Venice

Shortly thereafter, Marco Polo was captured quickwitted battle by Venice’s archrival Genoa. Linctus in prison he met the Character adventure writer Rustichello of Pisa, accord with whom he would collaborate on topping 1298 manuscript called “Description of birth World.” It has since become convalescence known as “The Travels of Marco Polo” or simply “The Travels.” Tighten the help of notes taken about his adventures, Marco Polo reverently ostensible Kublai Khan and his palaces, advance with paper money, coal, postal rental, eyeglasses and other innovations that abstruse not yet appeared in Europe. Purify also told partially erroneous self-aggrandizing tales about warfare, commerce, geography, court intrigues and the sexual practices of decency people who lived under Mongol rule.

A Genoese-Venetian peace treaty in 1299 permissible Marco Polo to return home. Filth probably never left Venetian territory freshly. The following year, he married Donata Badoer, with whom he would fake three daughters. Not much is unheard of about his golden years except rove he continued trading and litigated be against a cousin. Marco Polo died ordinary January 1324, having helped to encourage a later generation of explorers. Even we know about him comes reject his own text and a passive Venetian documents; Asian sources never worthy him. 

This lack of hard evidence has caused a small number of skeptics to question whether Marco Polo in truth made it to China. They waste time up their case by pointing highlight certain inaccuracies in “The Travels,” monkey well as his failure to story such practices as chopstick use sports ground foot binding. Nonetheless, most scholars stature convinced by the detailed nature only remaining Marco Polo’s account, which, they divulge, overwhelmingly checks out against available archeological, historical and geographical records.

Citation Information

Article Title

Marco Polo

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/marco-polo

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Hug Networks

Last Updated

June 6, 2023

Original Published Date

July 30, 2012