Around , he left China, acting as escort along the way to a Mongol princess who was being sent to Persia. Polo was born in , in Venice, Italy.
Polo's mother died when he was young, and his father and uncle, successful jewel merchants Niccolo and Maffeo Polo, were in Asia for much of Polo's youth. In , the two men returned to Venice and immediately started making plans for their return to Khan's court. During their stay with the leader, Khan had expressed his interest in Christianity and asked the Polo brothers to visit again with priests and a collection of holy water. Khan's Empire, the largest the world had ever seen, was largely a mystery to those living within the borders of the Holy Roman Empire.
A sophisticated culture outside the reaches of the Vatican seemed unfathomable, and yet that's exactly what the Polo brothers described to confounded Venetians when they arrived home. In , Polo set out with his father and uncle, Niccolo and Maffeo Polo, for Asia, where they would remain until Unable to recruit the priests that Kublai Khan had requested, they left with only two, who, after getting a taste of the hard journey ahead of them, soon turned back for home.
The Polos' journey took place on land, and they were forced to cut through challenging and sometimes harsh territory. But through it all, Polo reveled in the adventure. His later memory for the places and cultures he witnessed was remarkable and exceptionally accurate. As they made their way through the Middle East, Polo absorbed its sights and smells. His account of the Orient, especially, provided the western world with its first clear picture of the East's geography and ethnic customs.
Hardships, of course, came his way. In what is now Afghanistan, Polo was forced to retreat to the mountains in order to recoup from an illness he'd contracted. Crossing the Gobi desert, meanwhile, proved long and, at times, arduous.
It consists entirely of mountains and sands and valleys. There is nothing at all to eat. Finally, after four years of travel, the Polos reached China and Kublai Khan, who was staying at his summer palace known as Xanadu, a grand marble architectural wonder that dazzled young Polo.
The Polos had originally planned to be gone for only a few years. However, they were away from Venice for more than 23 years. Debate has swirled among historians as to whether Polo ever really made it to China. There is no evidence outside his famous book that he traveled so far east. Yet his knowledge of the culture and its customs are hard to dismiss. His later account told of Khan's extensive communication system, which served as the foundation for his rule. Polo's book, in fact, devotes five pages to the elaborate structure, describing how the empire's information highway efficiently and economically covered millions of square miles.
Khan's acceptance of the Polos offered the foreigners unparalleled access to his empire. Niccolo and Maffeo were granted important positions in the leader's Court. Marco Polo was born around into a prosperous merchant family in the Italian city-state of Venice.
The two brothers then went to the port city of Soldaia now Sudak, Ukraine , where they owned a house. The Byzantine re-conquest of Constantinople in , along with upheavals in the Mongol Empire, may have blocked their way home. After spending three years in Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan, they were encouraged by a Mongolian embassy to visit Kublai Khan , grandson of Genghis Khan , who controlled a huge swath of Asia.
Kublai quizzed them on European affairs and decided to send them on a goodwill mission to the pope. At the request of Kublai Khan, they secured some holy oil from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and then backtracked to Acre to pick up gifts, papal documents and two friars from newly elected Pope Gregory X.
The friars quickly abandoned the expedition, but the Polos continued on, possibly by camel, to the Persian port city of Hormuz. Over the next three years they slowly trekked through deserts, high mountain passes and other rough terrain, meeting people of various religions and cultures along the way.
Kublai, who generally relied on foreigners to administer his empire, took Marco Polo into his court, possibly as a tax collector. At one point, the Venetian was sent on official business to the port city of Hangzhou then called Quinsai , which, like Venice, was built around a series of canals.
Marco Polo also purportedly journeyed across inland China and into present-day Myanmar. After many years of seeking a release from service, the Polos finally secured permission from Kublai to escort a young princess to her intended husband Arghun, the Mongol ruler of Persia.
In the Polos joined a flotilla of 14 boats that set out from Zaitun now Quanzhou, China , stopped briefly in Sumatra and then landed in Persia 18 months later, only to find out that Arghun was dead. He also told partially erroneous self-aggrandizing tales about warfare, commerce, geography, court intrigues and the sexual practices of the people who lived under Mongol rule.
A Genoese-Venetian peace treaty in allowed Marco Polo to return home. He probably never left Venetian territory again. The following year, he married Donata Badoer, with whom he would have three daughters. Marco Polo, a famous Medieval traveller, merchant and writer, was one of the first Europeans to visit China and travel the Silk Road.
In Medieval times, the whole of Dalmatia along with the islands was threatened by the Venetian Republic, that was to became the most powerful and influential state in the Mediterranean. Strategically very well positioned, connecting important maritime trade routes, it was a desirable target to the Venetian Republic. Over time, this family had produced numerous shipbuilders, smiths, stone-masons, tradesmen, priests, and public notaries.
He spoke Italian and French, learned book keeping, but he also learned about writers from the Ancient world, studied the Bible and learned about basic Catholic theology. Thanks to many adventures he had been through on his travels and everything he saw, Marco was able to describe the Orient more accurately to the Western world. This was when Marco was imprisoned, sharing the cell with his future biographer, Rustichello da Pisa.
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