Marco Polo

 We live in a globalized world, where our household goods and even much of our food may come from North and South America, Europe, or Asia (less likely Africa, though that's also a possibility).  Medieval Europe was never as globalized as we are (no shoes imported from China or blueberries from Peru), but there were always trade networks that stretched far beyond Europe's boundaries.

Accompanying the trade were travelers' tales of the bizarre people and creatures one might find in foreign climes, everything from elephants to people with faces on their stomachs instead of on their heads.  But sometimes Europeans followed the trade routes (goods usually changed hands multiple times) to see for themselves.  One such person was Marco Polo (depicted below, in a later mosaic from Genoa).

 In 1271 he set out from Venice, his home, along with his father and uncle on a  trip that would take them across Asia to China and eventually home again, twenty-four years and over 15,000 miles later.  He was only seventeen at the time they set out, but the attention always goes to him, rather than the older men, because he wrote up the journey after it was over.  In fact, his father and uncle, Venetian traders named Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, deserve more credit than they usually get, for they had already taken a six-year journey into  Asia and come back to tell about it.

In 1271 the family started by ship, sailing from Venice to the eastern end of the Mediterranean, stopping by Jerusalem for some holy oil which, at least according to Marco, the emperor Kubla Khan had requested when Niccolò and Maffeo had visited him on their earlier trip.  From Jerusalem Marco and his older relatives traveled by land through the Middle East, where he marveled at what he saw in Persia, before heading off in a camel caravan through central Asia.

All through the trip, Marco kept looking at things with a merchant's eye, for his account is full of bazaars, tapestries and jewels, swords and spices and elephant tusks, objects that would bring a very high price in Europe, as well as recording marvels such as the supposed tombs of the Three Wise Men in Persia.

After many adventures they reached what was then the capital of China, Shangdu (also known as Zanadu or Cathay).  Here ruled the Mongol emperor Kubla Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, who ruled an empire stretching from China to Russia and what is now Iraq.  According to Marco, they were highly favored by the emperor, even though Niccolò and Maffeo had failed to bring the 100 learned Christian teachers they had promised when there earlier.

They ended up staying in China for seventeen years.  Marco became an agent and ambassador for the emperor, traveling as far as Indonesia.  There have been doubts expressed over the centuries whether he could have actually gone to all these places, but his descriptions of places and practices seem remarkably accurate.  Finally the three Venetians were given the task of escorting a princess from China to the Mongol ruler of Persia, which they did, continuing on to Constantinople and then safely home to Venice in 1295.

As was often the case in medieval Italy, various city states were at war with each other, in this case Venice and Genoa.  Marco became involved in the war and was captured, then locked up for many months in a Genoese prison.  This gave him the time to start writing his book of his travels, partly dictating it, partly, it seems, basing it on notes he had taken over the years.  The book was immediately famous, and hundreds of copies were made (this is still pre-printing press).  (Genoa is proud of its role in his book, which is why it has a mosaic to honor him.)

One sometimes hears that Marco Polo brought spaghetti back to Italy from China, but this is not true; the story in fact was invented in the twentieth century.  Italians had long eaten spaghetti.  Marco said that the Chinese he visited ate little bread but lots of vermicelli instead.  He would not have called twisty noodles vermicelli if he hadn't known his audience would at once recognize the word used (even today) for twisty noodles; literally the term means little worms.

More important than spaghetti or noodles, however, is the evidence of long distance trade across Eurasia and the possibility of personal relationships between people as different as a Mongol emperor of China and a family of Venetian merchants.  And it reminds us how tough our ancestors must have been, to take journeys like this by ship, horseback, camel, or on foot, with no maps, no GPS or ways to communicate with people back home, probably not knowing the languages half the time, going through hostile territory, not knowing where they'd find food, and yet somehow making it home again.  And remember the senior Polos did the trip twice.

© C. Dale Brittain 2022

For more on medieval travel and trade, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other ebook platforms.  Also available in paperback.