Marco Polo was a well-known Venetian explorer that was born in Venice, Italy on September 15th, 1254. During the earlier part of his life, he was raised by an aunt and uncle due to the death of his mother. It wasn’t until 1271, when his father and brother returned to meet him at age 15 that his travels began.
Marco traveled along the Silk Road between the years of 1271 and 1295, and recorded his travels in multiple books titled, “Marco Polo: The Description of the World”, and “The Travels of Marco Polo”. In these texts, he describes an abundance of locations, some of which it is unclear whether or not he actually traveled to these places or based his descriptions off of another traveler’s account.
Christianity played a role in Marco Polo’s travels. In 1271, Polo left with his uncle and father to obtain 100 priests, oil from the lamp of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, and letters from the Pope for the Great Khan Khubilai. Polo’s father and uncle had traveled to China years prior and agreed to bring those items when they returned (Toniolo et al, p 3366). Asia was mostly under Mongol rule during this time, and Italian/Latin merchants and missionaries were common to see in ports. One such port they would come from is in Armernia (Jackson, p 83).
It took all three Polos about three and a half years to complete their journey, much of which they spent traveling the Gobi Desert (Toniolo et al, p 3366). In each account, he describes the religions practiced, the commodities traded, and the type of residents that live in each area. Along with descriptions of the regions visited, he also includes stories about the regions such as wars that took place there, or the different cultures that he comes across throughout his journeys (Sharon, p 58). The first location he mentions in the text is Lesser Armenia, which from there he travels through Persia, describing the eight kingdoms that make up the country. From there, he travels through a region that is now known as Afghanistan, which eventually leads him to Mongolia and through to China, all of which was under the Mongol Empire at the time (Benedetto, p 49). For many years he worked under the Great Khan as a messenger, and was regarded as a very useful tool to the Great Khan. This is proved by the fact that the Great Khan would not let him and his father leave for Europe until 1291. They then traveled to Constantinople briefly before returning to Venice, Italy after traveling approximately 15,000 miles over the course of 24 years (Benedetto, p 61).
Polo would eventually be captured after a battle at sea in 1298. Genoa had been in war with Venice (where Polo was from) and had captured Polo. Genoa had won the war, and Polo had stayed imprisoned for a year. It was in prison where Polo would describe his travels to his cellmate, who wrote them down. Polo was released from jail a year later and released the stories of his travels. He remained in Venice until his death in 1324 at 70 years old (Toniolo et al, p 3367-3368).
In order to compile a list of locations to use on our map we used, “Marco Polo: The Description of the World”, which was written in a prison cell in 1298 by Marco Polo and Arthurian romance writer, Rustichello of Pisa.