Marco Polo

Podcast Transcript

In the 13th century, the Republic of Venice was one of the leading merchant empires in Europe.

The merchants from Venice traveled far and wide in pursuit of profit. A few of them, however, traveled very far.

A small group of men from the same family made the extremely long and dangerous voyage to China during the reign of the Mongol Empire.

The result was a more detailed description of China than had ever been known before in the West.

Learn more about the journeys of Marco Polo on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

A common theme I’ve had in many of my episodes is the contact and clashes between different civilizations.

I’ve done episodes on the travels of the great Islamic traveler Ibn Battuta, the connections between Rome and China, and the voyages of the great Chinese admiral Zheng He.

Before Ibn Battuta’s travels in the 14th century and Zheng He’s voyages in the 15th century, a small group of men from Venice made an incredibly lengthy overland journey through Central Asia to China.

Most of you are probably familiar with the name Marco Polo, if not his travels. If nothing else, you might know the name from the game often played in a swimming pool.

Marco Polo was born around 1254 in Venice, during the High Middle Ages. To understand why his story matters so much, you need to picture Venice at this time. It wasn’t just another Italian city – it was a maritime empire, a bustling hub where East met West. Venetian merchants were the master traders of the Mediterranean, and the Polo family was right in the thick of this commercial world.

Marco’s father, Niccolò, and his uncle, Maffeo, were already seasoned merchants who had made previous journeys to the East.

Marco wasn’t a random adventurer who decided to explore the world. He came from a family that understood international trade, spoke multiple languages, and had already established connections far beyond Europe.

Both Niccolò and Maffeo had ventured as far as the court of Kublai Khan in the Mongol Empire. A trip of such length was almost unheard of at this time.

In a previous episode, I discussed what ancient China and Rome knew about each other. It wasn’t very much.

By the 13th century, things had improved, if only because the Mongols had expanded so far into the Near East and Eastern Europe, but there still wasn’t any regular contact between China and Europe.

So, the journey made by the Polo brothers was still extremely rare at this time.

Their first journey to China began in 1260, when Marco was six years old, and they returned in 1269, nine years later, when Marco was fifteen.

During their first trip, they were invited by an envoy of Kubli Khan to visit his summer place in Shangdu, or as it is better known in the west, Xanadu.

When they returned to Venice, Niccolò was able to meet and get to know his son, whom he hadn’t seen since he was a child.

We don’t have details of what happened when he came home, but he almost certainly regaled his son with tales of his adventures in China.

Soon after the Polos returned home, they began planning a return trip to China. This time, Niccolò was going to bring his young son with him.

In 1271, the Polos departed Venice.

The route they took followed what we now call the Silk Road, though people at the time simply called it “the road to Cathay.” Starting from Venice, they traveled through the Middle East, across Persia, or modern-day Iran, through the mountains of Afghanistan, and into Central Asia. This wasn’t a quick trip – the journey to reach China took them about three and a half years.

Why did it take so long?

First, they weren’t just walking or riding horses in a straight line. They had to join merchant caravans for safety, wait for favorable weather and political conditions, and often stop for extended periods to conduct business along the way.

The Silk Road wasn’t really a single road but a network of trading routes, and successful merchants like the Polos made money at various stops along their journey.

This should also give a clue as to why there was so little contact between Europe and China. Just getting there took 3.5 years, which means, at a minimum, a round trip would take seven years, and that doesn’t even include doing anything when you get there.

They reached the court of Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor and grandson of Genghis Khan, who ruled over the Yuan Dynasty in China. Kublai Khan welcomed the Polos warmly, especially Marco, who displayed linguistic skill, charm, and curiosity, which resulted in Marco entering the Khan’s service.

We don’t know which languages he spoke, but in addition to his dialect of Italian and Latin, he probably knew Persian, Mongolian, an older form of Mandarin, and probably one or more Turkic languages from Central Asia.

This is what makes Marco’s story so unique. Instead of just conducting their business and leaving, the Polos became trusted members of Kublai Khan’s administration. Marco, with his gift for languages and his European perspective, became particularly valuable to the Khan.

Think of him as an early cultural ambassador – he could provide insights about European customs, trade practices, and political systems that fascinated the Mongol ruler.

For the next seventeen years, Marco served in various official capacities. He traveled throughout the empire on diplomatic missions, essentially becoming the Khan’s eyes and ears in distant provinces. This gave him an unprecedented opportunity to observe Chinese civilization, Mongol administration, and all the cultures within the empire.

He may have reached places as far afield as Burma and possibly India.

Macro was witness to technologies that wouldn’t arrive in Europe for decades, if not centuries.

He saw paper money being used routinely – something virtually unknown in Europe, where people still relied on heavy gold and silver coins. He observed the Chinese using coal for fuel, while Europeans were still primarily burning wood. He witnessed the efficiency of the Chinese postal system, with its network of relay stations that allowed messages to travel across vast distances faster than anything in Europe.

The cities he visited dwarfed anything in the West. Khanbaliq, modern Beijing, and Quinsai, modern Hangzhou, were metropolises with populations exceeding a million people, whereas the largest European cities in the Middle Ages had populations of around 100,000.

Eventually, they decided it was time to go home. Initially, their request to leave the court of Kublai Khan was denied. However, they became concerned about their safety if the Khan should die, because they could become potential targets of the Khan’s enemies once his protection was removed.

By 1292, the Polos finally received permission to depart. They had accumulated considerable wealth, and Kublai Khan was aging.

Their departure was facilitated by their agreement to escort a Mongol princess to Persia for a diplomatic marriage. This mission took them on a sea route through Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean.

When they finally reached Venice in 1295, they had been gone for 24 years.

According to legend, their own family didn’t recognize them at first.

….and this is where Marco’s story takes an unexpected turn that led to his lasting fame.

While the stories of Marco Polo in China are what made him famous, his return to Venice was not the end of his story. In fact, if it ended here, we might never have known about his travels in China.

In 1298, Venice went to war with its rival city-state, Genoa. Marco, now a wealthy merchant, commanded a Venetian galley in the conflict. He was captured by the Genoese and imprisoned. It was during this imprisonment that he met Rustichello of Pisa, a writer of romance literature.

This prison meeting changed history. Rustichello recognized that Marco’s stories were extraordinary, and together they collaborated on a book that would become known as “The Travels of Marco Polo” or “Il Milione” in Italian.

The process was collaborative – Marco provided the experiences and memories, while Rustichello shaped them into a narrative that would appeal to medieval readers.

The book was revolutionary for several reasons. First, it provided Europeans with their most detailed and accurate description of China to date.

Second, it was written in French rather than Latin, making it accessible to a broader audience of merchants and educated laypeople. Most books written at this time were in Latin.

Third, it combined practical information about trade routes and commercial opportunities with vivid descriptions of foreign customs and marvels.

When the book began circulating in the early 14th century, reactions were mixed. Some readers were fascinated by Marco’s descriptions of Asian wealth and sophistication.

Others dismissed his accounts as fantasy – the stories seemed too incredible to believe. Critics nicknamed the book “Il Milione” or The Million, to mock what they saw as Marco’s tendency to exaggerate everything by a factor of millions.

This skepticism is important to understand. Medieval Europeans had a very limited worldview, and Marco’s descriptions challenged fundamental assumptions about European superiority and the nature of the world beyond Christendom. The idea that there were cities larger and more sophisticated than Paris or Venice was difficult for many to accept.

There were other reasons for skepticism as well. Marco’s accounts often blended accurate observations with mythic or exaggerated elements, such as stories of “unicorns.” Some of his accounts of China’s wealth and size were over the top.

We don’t know how much of the exaggeration was Polo’s and how much of it was Rustichello’s, who actually wrote it.

Although there is no Chinese record of his presence, the detailed descriptions he provided suggest access to official documents and firsthand knowledge. He couldn’t have possibly known most of the things he reported if he hadn’t witnessed it firsthand.

Despite initial skepticism, Marco Polo’s book gradually gained credibility and influence. By the 15th century, it had become one of the most important geographical texts in Europe.

Here’s why this matters for world history:

The book inspired later explorers, most famously Christopher Columbus, who carried a heavily annotated copy of Marco Polo’s travels on his voyages. Columbus was explicitly looking for the wealthy Asian lands that Marco had described.

In a very real sense, Marco Polo’s book helped motivate the Age of Exploration that would eventually connect the entire world.

The detailed descriptions of Asian trade goods and commercial practices also influenced European merchants and eventually helped drive the expansion of global trade networks. Venice’s dominant position in East-West trade was partly built on the intelligence that the Polos brought back from their journeys.

Contemporary historians continue to debate various aspects of Marco Polo’s story. Some scholars question whether he actually made it to China, pointing out that certain details are missing from his account that they believe he should have noticed.

Others argue that the collaborative nature of his book with Rustichello means we can’t always distinguish between Marco’s actual experiences and literary embellishments.

However, the majority of serious historians accept that Marco Polo did indeed travel to China and serve in Kublai Khan’s administration.

The level of accurate detail about Chinese customs, geography, and administration in his book would have been impossible to fabricate based on secondhand sources alone.

Marco Polo died in Venice in 1324, around age 70. By then, he had lived to see his book gain widespread circulation and influence. He had transformed from a young merchant’s son into one of history’s most famous travelers.

Despite the fact that there were exaggerations and some outright fabrications in Marco Polo’s book, there is no denying the impact that it had.

Marco Polo represents the beginning of sustained cultural contact between Europe and East Asia. While there had been earlier contacts, and it would take centuries for contact to really get going, Marco’s detailed observations and the wide circulation of his book marked a turning point in Europe’s awareness of Asia.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

Today’s review comes from listener apoz2011 over on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write:

Recently, my family has bought a house a few states away, and the drive is about 1 1/2 hours long. During that time, we usually put on these podcasts.

I love listening to them and learning about new ideas and subjects. Also, I feel these are not too long for people like me with ADHD.

Anyway, thank you a lot for being entertaining and extremely interesting!

Thanks, apoz! I hope you enjoy your new home, and I’m glad I’m able to keep you and your family company during the drives.

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