Marco Polo

Marco Polo 1254-1324

Marco Polo was born around 1254, we can't be exactly sure about his year of birth.

He probably grew up in Venice.

Marco Polo's father was Niccolò Polo. Marco Polo's uncle was Maffeo Polo.

They were smart traders and thus Marco's family was pretty comfortable financially. One of their friends was even made pope. That was "Gregory X".

Marco Polo was married and had three daughters.

Marco, Niccolò, and Maffeo were travel companions and on the road from 1271 until 1295.

Before that they had pitched tent at Constantinople and made a fortune there. In 1260, they exchanged all their money for jewels and took off direction Mongol Empire, as you do.

In 1275, the Polos arrived in Cathay, or China. They set up camp there for 17 years and made friends with, and worked for Kublai Khan, famous grandson of Genghis Khan. 

In 1292, the exploratory trio left China and got mugged. Someone's Christmas came early that year.
 

In 1295, and after 24 years of travel, the Polos arrived back home. Of course, nobody recognized them. Marco was now in his early 40s.

In 1298, Venice and Genoa competed against each other in a sea battle. The Genoese took Marco Polo captive and locked him up in a prison in Genoa. But Marco was in good company. His cell-mate was the accomplished writer Rustichello. 

Rustichello offered to write Marco Polo's travel log. Marco was delighted and accepted. The product was his Description of the World.
Relations between Venice and Genoa relaxed and Marco Polo got out of prison around 1299.

Marco Polo wrote Il milione, which means The Million, and is today better known as the Travels of Marco Polo. Its original title was Description of the World (Divisament dou monde.)

People's imaginations were triggered by descriptions of unknown civilizations, enormous fortunes, new and exciting things such as asbestos, coal, magic rites, and paper money. Oddly, Marco wrote it without giving away how he felt about all this. He just gave the plain facts.

The Polos might or might not have acted as military advisers to Emperor Kublai Khan. And Marco might or might not have been temporarily the governor of Jiangsu. 

Several versions of Marco Polo's work circulated and some editors felt free to lent a writing hand, thus contributing to the list of potential factual errors. And did the people know how to spell all the foreign terms and geographic destinations? Of course not.