Marco Polo, whose writings helped encourage European trade with China, is depicted being transported in Kublai Khan’s elephant car during Polo’s visit to China in the 1200s. (© North Wind Picture Archives)
A Venetian merchant who spent seventeen years in the Mongol court serving Kublai Khan and whose journal attracted Europeans to the trade opportunities of the Far East.
Marco Polo, born to a wealthy mercantile family, received a classical education and, with Venice as the center of Mediterranean commerce, he quickly became interested in trade and the unknown world. In 1260, Marco’s father, Niccolò, and uncle, Maffeo, traveled to the Volga River to trade and, when the political situation became unstable, they headed east and stayed at Bukhara for three years. When the Mongol ambassador arrived at Bukhara, he convinced the two to visit Kublai Khan, who was very interested in meeting Europeans, and in 1266 they arrived at Beijing. Kublai expressed his interest to learn about the West and requested oil from the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. On their return, Kublai Khan presented Niccolò and Maffeo with a golden tablet to protect them on their journey. In 1269, they arrived back in Venice, and by this time Marco was fifteen years old.
In 1271, Niccoló and Maffeo decided to return to the Mongol empire, and this time, because his mother had died, they took Marco with them to learn the family business. As they traveled, they carried letters from the papal legate Teobaldo of Piacenza (who soon after writing the letters became Pope Gregory X) and journeyed through modern-day Turkey, Iran, and then Afghanistan, where they stayed for one year. They then followed the Silk Road into the Mongol empire, and by 1275 they had arrived at Kublai Khan’s court. They stayed until 1292, and little is known of their actual activities at this time. They spent much of their time in Cathay (northern China) and the major city there, Beijing, and although they did not speak Chinese, they were well versed in the trade languages of the Silk Road. During their stay, they served Kublai Khan as administrators and saw parts of the region that would not be seen again by Europeans for hundreds of years. Marco’s writings clearly show that he was impressed not only with Kublai Khan but also with the Mongol empire. Marco, from a merchant family, wrote of his fascination with the Mongol use of paper money, their very efficient postal system, and their use of coal. During their seventeen-year stay, the three acquired great wealth, but as Kublai grew older and weaker, they started to worry about what might happen to them when he died.
Marco Polo, whose writings helped encourage European trade with China, is depicted being transported in Kublai Khan’s elephant car during Polo’s visit to China in the 1200s. (© North Wind Picture Archives)
In 1292, they agreed to accompany a Mongol princess to Persia and soon left in a convoy of fourteen ships. They spent five months on Sumatra, waiting out the monsoon season, and then to Hormuz. After delivering the princess, they left for Venice. During their travel home, most of the wealth that they had acquired during their stay in the Mongol empire was stolen. Three years after Marco’s return, the Genoese took him prisoner as he commanded a Venetian war galley. During his stay in prison, Marco encountered a romance writer, Rustichello of Pisa, who, after hearing of Macro’s adventures, convinced him to write his story.
His work, The Travels of Marco Polo, provided descriptive accounts of the Mongol empire, of the social, economic, political, and cultural situation of China and the Far East, and it quickly became a popular work. Many people came to refer to Marco’s account as Il Milione because they believed that he was telling a million lies. This early doubt of his work has continued to the present, as scholars have wondered why he omitted so many things. In the past several decades, scholars have worked hard to validate The Travels of Marco Polo, while utilizing his work to develop a better understanding of China during this period.
Marco’s journey to the Mongol empire and his return marked a phase in the history of European expansion, beginning with the Crusades, that would intensify in the fifteenth century. While the Silk Road and Muslim trade networks ensured a small flow of Far Eastern commodities into Europe, such as spices and silk, the high number of middlemen reduced the profits of European merchants who traded in these exotic commodities. Marco’s journey proved that it was possible for European merchants to travel overland to the Far East and develop direct trade for the luxury commodities. Conversely, his journey also illustrated how arduous creating such a trade route would be and clearly showed that Marco, Niccolò, and Maffeo were able to travel to and from China only because of the protection of Kublai Khan. This increasing interest in Cathay, intensified by Marco’s account, was redirected because of the rise of the Ottomans who quickly took on a middleman position between the commodities of the Silk Road and Europe.
The fifteenth-century rise of the Ottoman empire forced states such as Portugal, which hoped to make money by trading in spices and other Far Eastern commodities, to look for new routes to the Far East. The best, fastest, and most cost-effective way involved developing a sea route from western Europe to the Far East, and in the 1400s, the Portuguese, led by Prince Henry the Navigator, who was influenced by Marco’s book, started to journey down the West African coast. It was not until 1497 that the Portuguese finally rounded the Cape of Good Hope and made it to the Far East, thus making a new connection to the world that Marco had helped to open up. Marco’s travels clearly marked a new phase in European history as it began to expand not only politically but also economically, thus increasing its interaction with the rest of the world.
Ty M. Reese
See also: China; Chinese Dynasties; Crusades; Henry the Navigator; Mediterranean Sea; Middle Ages; Mongol Invasions; Ottomans; Portugal; Silk Road; Spices; Venice.
Larner, John. Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.
Whitfield, Susan. Life Along the Silk Road. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Wood, Frances. Did Marco Polo Go to China? Boulder: Westview, 1996.