Marco Polo

Marco Polo was an Italian merchant, explorer, and writer, born in the Republic of Venice. His travels are recorded in Book of the Marvels of the World, also known as The Travels of Marco Pole (c. 1300), a book that described to Europeans the wealth and great size of China, capital Peking^[각주:1], and other Asian cities and countries. 

He learned the mercantile trade from his father and his uncle, Niccolo and Maffeo, who traveled through Asia and met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for the first time. The three of them embarked on an epic journey to Asia, returning after 24 years to find Venice at war with Genoa; Marco was imprisoned and dictated his stories to a cellmate. He was released in 1299, became a wealthy merchant, married, and had three children. He died in 1324 and was buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Venice. 

Marco Polo was not the first European to reach China, but he was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his experience. This book inspired Christopher Columbus and many other travelers. There is a substantial literature based on Polo's writings; he also influenced European cartography, leading to the introduction of the Fra Mauro map. 

Travels of Marco Polo

An authoritative version of Marco Polo's book does not and cannot exist, for the early manuscripts differ significantly. The published editions of his book either rely on single manuscripts, blend multiple versions together, or add notes to clarify, for example in the English translation by Henry Yule. The 1938 English translation by A.C. Moule and Paul Pelliot is based on a Latin manuscript found in the library of the Cathedral of Toledo in 1932, and is 50% longer than other versions. Approximately 150 manuscript copies in various languages are known to exist, and before availability of the printing press discrepancies were inevitably introduced during copying and translation. The popular translation published by Penguin Books in 1958 by R.E. Latham works several texts together to make a readable whole. 

Polo related his memoirs orally to Rustichello da Pisa while both were prisoners of the Genova Republic. Rustichello wrote Devisement du Monde in Langues d'Oil, a lingua franca of crusaders and western merchants in the Orient. The idea probably was to create a handbook for merchants, essentially a text on weights, measures and distances. 

Narrative 

The book opens with a preface describing his father and uncle traveling to Bolghar where Prince Berke Khan lived. A year later, they went to Ukek and continued to Bukhara. There, an envoy from the Levant invited them to meet Kublai Khan, who had never met Europeans. In 1266, they reached the seat of Kublai Khan at Dadu, present day Beijing, China. Kublai received received the brothers with hospitality and asked them many questions regarding the European legal and political system. He also inquired about the Pope and Church in Rome. After the brothers answered the questions he tasked them with delivering a letter to^[각주:2] the Pope, requesting 100 Christians acquainted with the Seven Arts (grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, arithmetic, music and astronomy). Kublai Khan requested that an envoy bring him back oil of the lamp in Jerusalem. The long sede vacante^[각주:3] between the death of Pope Clement IV in 1268 and the election of his successor delayed the Polos in fulfilling Kublai's request. They followed the suggestion of Theobald Visconti, then papal legate for^[각주:4] the realm of Egypt, and returned to Venice in 1269 or 1270 to await the nomination of the new Pope, which allowed Marco to see his father for the first time, at the age of fifteen or sixteen. 

In 1271, Niccolo, Maffeo and Marco Polo embarked on their voyage to fulfill Kublai's request. They sailed to Acre, and then rode on camels to the Persian port of Hormuz. The Polos wanted to sail straight into China, but the ships there were not seaworthy^[각주:5], so they continued overland^[각주:6] through the Silk Road, until reaching Kublai's summer palace in Shangdu, near present-day Zhangjiakou. In one instance during their trip, the Polos joined a caravan of travelling merchants whom they crossed paths with. Unfortunately, the party was soon attacked by bandits, who used the cover of a sandstorm to ambush them^[각주:7]. The Polos managed to fight and escape through a nearby town, but many members of the caravan were killed or enslaved. Three and a half years after leaving Venice, when Marco was about 21 years old, the Polos were welcomed by Kublai into his palace. The exact date of their arrival is unknown, but scholars estimate it to be between 1271 and 1275. On reaching the Yuan court, the Polos presented the sacred oil from Jerusalem and the papal letters to^[각주:8] their their patron. 

Marco knew four languages, and the family had accumulated a great deal of knowledge and experience that was useful to Kublai. It is possible that he became a government official; he wrote about many imperial visits to China's southern and eastern provinces, the far south and Burma. They were highly respected and sought after in the Mongolian court, and so Kublai Khan decided to decline the Polo's requests to leave China. They became worried about returning home safely, believing that if Kublai died, his enemies might turn against them because of their close involvement with the ruler. In 1292, Kublai's great-nephew, then ruler of Persia, sent representatives to China in search of a potential wife, and they asked the Polos to accompany them, so they were permitted to return to Persia with the wedding party - which left that same year from Zaitun in southern China on a fleet of 14 junks. The party sailed to the port of Singapore, traveled north to Sumatra, and sailed west to the Point Pedro port of Jaffna under Savakanmaindan and to Pandyan of Tamilakkam. Eventually Polo crossed the Arabian Sea to Hormuz. The two-year voyage was a perilous one - of the six hundred people (not including the crew) in the convoy only eighteen had survived (including all three Polos). The Polos left the wedding party after reaching Hormuz and traveled overland to the port of Trebizond on the Black Sea, the present day Trabzon. 

Role of Rustichello 

The British scholar Ronald Latham has pointed out that The Book of Marvels was in fact a collaboration written in 1298-1299 between Polo and a professional writer of romances, Rustichello of Pisa. Latham also argued that Rustichello may have glamorized Polo's accounts, and added fantastic and romantic elements that made the book a bestseller. The Italian scholar Luigi Foscolo Benedetto had previously demonstrated that the book was written in the same "leisurely, conversational style" that characterized Rustichello's other works, and that some passages in the book were taken verbatim or with minimal modifications from other writings by Rustichello. For example, the opening introduction in The Book of Marvels to "emperors and kings, dukes and marquises" was lifted straight out of an Arthurian romance Rustichello had written several years earlier, and the account of the second meeting between Polo and Kublai Khan at the latter's court is almost the same as that of the arrival of Tristan at the court of King Arthur at Camelot in that same book. Latham believed that many elements of the book, such as legends of the Middle East and mentions of exotic marvels, may have been the work of Rustichello who was giving what medieval European readers expected to find in a travel book. 

Since its publication, some have viewed the book with skepticism. Some in the Middle Ages regarded the book simply as a romance or fable, due largely to the sharp difference of its descriptions of a sophisticated civilization in China to other early accouts by Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and William of Rubruck who portrayed the Mongols as 'barbarians' who appeared to belong to 'some other world'. Doubts have also been raised in later centuries about Marco Polo's narrative of his travels in China, for example for his failure to mention the Great Wall of China, and in particular the difficulties in identifying many of the place names he used (the great majority however have since been identified). Many have questioned if he had visited the places he mentioned in his itinerary, if he had appropriated the accounts of his father and uncle or other travelers, and some doubted if he even reached China, or that if he did, perhaps never went beyond Khanbaliq (Beijing). 

It has however been pointed out that Polo's accounts of China are more accurate and detailed than other travelers' accounts of the periods. Polo had at times refuted the 'marvelous' fables and legends given in other European accounts, and despite some exaggerations and errors, Polo's accounts have relatively few of the descriptions of irrational marvels. In many cases where present (mostly given in the first part before he reached China, such as mentions of Christian miracles), he made a clear distinction that they are what he had heard rather than what he had seen. It is also largely free of the gross errors found in other accounts such as those given by the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta who had confused the Yellow River with the Grand Canal and other waterways, and believed that porcelain was made from coal. 

Modern studies have further shown that details given in Marco Polo's book, such as the currencies used, salt productions and revenues, are accurate and unique. Such detailed descriptions are not found in other non-Chinese sources, and their accuracy is supported by archaeological evidence as well as Chinese records compiled after Polo had left China, his accounts are therefore unlikely to have been obtained second hand. Other accounts have also been verified; for example, when visiting Zhenjiang in Jiangsu, China, Marco Polo noted that a large number of Christian churches had been built there. His claim is confirmed by a Chinese text of the 14th century explaining how a Sogdian named Mar-Sarigis from Samarkand founded six Nestorian Christian churches there in addition to one in Hangzhou during the second half of the 13th century. His story of the princess Kokochin sent from China to Persia to marry the Il-khan is also confirmed by independent sources in both Persia and China. 

Debate

Omissions 

Skeptics have long wondered if Marco Polo wrote his book based on hearsay, with some pointing to omissions about noteworthy practices and structures of China as well as the lack of details on some places in his book. While Polo describes paper money and the burning of coal, he fails to mention the Great Wall of China, tea, Chinese characters, chopsticks, or foot-binding. His failure to note the presence of the Great Wall of China was first raised in the middle of seventeenth century, and in the middle of eighteenth century, it was suggested that he might have never reached China. However, the Mongols were not fond of the Great Wall that for centuries had stood against them; thus it had fallen into obscurity during that time period. Later scholars such as John W. Haeger argued the Marco Polo might not have visited Southern China due to the lack of details in his description of southern Chinese cities compared to northern ones, while Herbert Franke also raised the possibility that Marco Polo might not have been to China at all, and wondered if he might have based his accounts on Persian sources due to his use of Persian expressions. This is taken further by Dr. Frances Wood who claimed in her 1995 book Did Marco Polo Go to China? that at best Polo never went farther east than Persia (modern Iran), and that there is nothing in The Book of Marvels about China that could not be obtained via reading Persian books. Wood maintains that it is more probable that Polo only went to Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey) and some of the Italian merchant colonies around the Black Sea, picking hearsay from those travelers who had been farther east. 

Supporters of the book's basic accuracy countered on the points raised by skeptics such as foot-binding and the Great Wall of China. Historian Stephen G. Haw argued that the Great Walls were built to keep out northern invaders, whereas the ruling dynasty during Marco Polo's visit were those very northern invaders. They note that the Great Wall familiar to us today is a Ming structure built some two centuries after Marco Polo's travels; and that the Mongol rulers whom Polo served controlled territories both north and south of today's wall, and would have no reasons to maintain any fortifications that may have remained there from the earlier dynasties. Other Europeans who traveled to Khanbaliq during the Yuan Dynasty, such as Giovanni de' Marignolli and Odoric of Pordenone, said nothing about the wall either. The Muslim traveler Ibn Batutta, who asked about the wall when he visited China during the Yuan Dynasty, could find no one who had either seen it or knew of anyone who had seen it, suggesting that while ruins of the wall constructed in the earlier periods might have existed, they were not significant or noteworthy at that time. 

Haw also argued that foot-binding was not common even among Chinese during Polo's time and almost unknown among the Mongols. While the Italian missionary Odoric of Pordenone who visited Yuan China mentioned foot-binding (it is however unclear whether he was merely relaying something he had heard as his description is inaccurate), no other foreign visitors to Yuan China mentioned the practice, perhaps an indication that the foot-binding was not widespread or was not practiced in an extreme form at that time. Marco Polo himself noted (in the Toledo manuscript) the dainty walk of Chinese women who took very short steps. It has also been noted by other scholars that many of the things not mentioned by Marco Polo such as tea and chopsticks were not mentioned by other travelers as well. Haw also pointed out that despite the few omissions, Marco Polo's account is more extensive, more accurate and more detailed than those of other foreign travelers to China in this period. Marco Polo even observed Chinese nautical inventions such as the watertight compartments of bulkhead partitions in Chinese ships, knowledge of which he was keen to share with his fellow Venetians. 

Exaggerations 

Many scholars believe that Marco Polo exaggerated his importance in China. The British historian David Morgan thought that Polo had likely exaggerated and lied about his status in China, while Ronald Latham believed that such exaggerations were embellishments by his ghost writer Rustichello da Pisa. In The Book of Marvels, Polo claimed that he was a close friend and advisor to Kublai Khan and that he was the governor of the city of Yangzhou for three years - yet no Chinese source mentions him as either a friend of the Emperor or as the governor of Yangzhou - indeed no Chinese source mentions Marco Polo at all. Herbert Franke noted that all occurrences of Polo or Bolod (an Altaic word meaning "steel") in Yuan texts were names of people of Mongol or Turkic extraction^[각주:9]. The sinologist^[각주:10] Paul Pelliot thought that Polo might have served as an officer of the government salt monopoly in Yangzhou, which as a position of some significance that could explain the exaggeration. Polo also claimed to have provided the Mongols with technical advice on building mangonels^[각주:11] during the Siege of Xiangyang, a claim that cannot possibly be true as the siege was over before Polo had arrived in China. The Mongol army that besieged Xiangyang did have foreign military engineers, but they were mentioned in Chinese sources as being from Baghdad and had Arabic names. 

Stephen G. Haw, however, challenges this idea that Polo exaggerated his own importance, writing that, "contrary to what has often been said... Marco does not claim any very exalted position for himself in the Yuan empire." He points out that Marco never claimed to be a minister of high rank, a darughachi, a leader of a tumen  (i.e. 10,000 men), not even the leader of 1,000 men, only that he was an emissary for^[각주:12] the khan and held a position of some honor. Haw sees this as a reasonable claim if Marco was a keshig, who numbered some fourteen thousand at the time. Haw explains how the earliest manuscripts of Polo's accounts provide contradicting information about his role in Yangzhou, with some stating he was just a simple resident, others stating he was a governor, and Ramusio's manuscript claiming he was simply holding that office as a temporary substitute for someone else, yet all the manuscripts concur^[각주:13] that he worked as an esteemed^[각주:14] emissary for the khan. Haw also objected to the approach to finding mention of Marco Polo in Chinese texts, contending that contemporaneous Europeans had little regard for using surnames, and a direct Chinese transcription of the name "Marco" ignores the possibility of him taking on a Chinese or even Mongol name that had no bearing^[각주:15] or similarity with his Latin name. 

Errors

A number of errors in Marco Polo's account have been noted: for example, he described the bridge later known as Marco Polo Bridge as having twenty-four arches instead of eleven or thirteen. He also said that city wall of Khanbaliq had twelve gates when it had only eleven. Archaeologists have also pointed out that Polo may have mixed up the details from the two attempted invasions of Japan by Kublai Khan in 1274 and 1281. Polo wrote of five-masted ships, when archaeological excavations found that the ships in fact had only three masts. 

Appropriation

Wood accused Marco Polo of taking other people's accounts in his book, retelling other stories as his own, or based his accounts on Persian guidebooks or other lost sources. For example, Sinologist Francis Woodman Cleaves noted that Polo's account of the voyage of the princess Kokochin from China to Persia to marry the Il-khan in in 1293 has been confirmed by a passage in the 15th-century Chinese work Yongle Encyclopedia and by the Persian historian Rashid-alDIn Hamadani in his work Jami' al-tawarikh. However neither of these accounts mentions Polo or indeed any European as part of the bridal party^[각주:16], and Wood used the lack of mention of Polo in these works as an example of Polo's "retelling of a well-known tale". Morgan, in Polo's defence, noted that even the princess herself was not mentioned in the Chinese source, and that it would have been surprising if Polo had been mentioned by Rashid-al-Din. Historian Igor de Rachewiltz argued that Marco Polo's account in fact allows the Persian and Chinese sources o be reconciled^[각주:17] - by relaying the information that two of the three envoys sent (mentioned in the Chinese source and whose names accord with^[각주:18] those given by Polo) had died during the voyage, it explains why only the third who survived, Coja/Khoja, was mentioned by Rashid al-Din. Polo had therefore completed the story by providing information not found in either source. He also noted that the only Persian source that mentions the princess was not completed until 1310-11, therefore Marco Polo could not have learned the information from any Persian book. According to de Rachewiltz, the concordance of^[각주:19] Polo's detailed account of the princess with other independent sources that gave only incomplete information is proof of the veracity of Polo's story and his presence in China.

Assessments 

Morgan writes that since much of what The Book of Marvels has to say about China is "demonstrably^[각주:20] correct" that to claim that Polo did not go to China "creates far more problems than it solves" and so that the "balance of probabilities" strongly suggests that Polo really did go to China, even if he exaggerated somewhat his importance in^[각주:21] China. Haw dismisses the various anachronistic criticisms of^[각주:22] Polo's accounts that started in the 17th century, and highlights Polo's accuracy in great part of his accounts, for example on the lay of^[각주:23] the land such as the Grand Canal of China. "If Marco was a liar," Haw writes, "then he must have been an implausibly^[각주:24] meticulous one." 

In 2012, the University of Tubingen Sinologist and historian Hans Ulrich Vogel released a detailed analysis of Polo's description of currencies, salt production and revenues, and argued that the evidence supports his presence in China because he included details which he could not have otherwise known. Vogel noted that no other Western, Arab, or Persian sources have given such accurate and unique details about the currencies of^[각주:25] China, for example, the shape and size of the paper, the use of seals, the various denominations of paper money^[각주:26] as well as variations in currency usage in different regions of China, such as the use of cowry shells in^[각주:27] Yunnan, details supported by archaeological evidence and Chinese sources compiled long after Polo's had left China. His accounts of salt production and revenues from the salt monopoly are also accurate, and accord with Chinese documents of the Yuan era. Economic historian Mark Elvin, in his preface to Vogel's 2013 monograph^[각주:28], concludes that Vogel "demonstrates by specific example after specific example the ultimately overwhelming probability of the broad authenticity" of Polo's account. Many problems were caused by the oral transmission of^[각주:29] the original text and the proliferation of significantly different hand-copied manuscripts. For instance, did Polo exert "political authority" in Yangzhou or merely "sojourn^[각주:30]" there. Elvin concludes that "those who doubted, although mistaken, were not always being casual or foolish," but "the case as a whole had now been closed": the book is, "in essence^[각주:31], authentic, and, when used with care, in broad terms to be trusted as a serious though obviously not always final, witness."

Legacy

1. Peking ; [명사] 북경 ((중국의 수도; Beijing의 구칭)) ;; 미국·영국 [pì:kíŋ] [본문으로]
2. task ; [타동사][VN] [주로 수동태로] ~ sb (with sth) (격식) (~에게) 과업[과제]을 맡기다[주다] [본문으로]
3. sede vacante ; (교황의) 자리가 비었을 때에 ;; 교황궐위상태(교황의 자리가 비어있는 상태) [본문으로]
4. papal legate ; (종교) 교황 특사 [본문으로]
5. seaworthy ; [형용사] (배가) 항해에 알맞는(fit for voyage), 항해[파도]에 견딜 만한(cf. airworthy). [본문으로]
6. overland ; [부사] 육상으로, 육로로; 산 넘고 물 건너, 멀리 [본문으로]
7. ambush ; [자, 타동사] 매복하다; 매복하여 습격하다; <복병을> 숨겨 두다 [본문으로]
8. papal ; [형용사] (명사 앞에만 씀) 교황의 ;; 미국∙영국 [|peɪpl] [본문으로]
9. extraction ; 2. [U] of… extraction (격식) …가문[혈통] 출신인 ;; 3. 발췌[인용] (어구), 초록(抄錄). ;; 4. 계통, 가계, 혈통. [본문으로]
10. sinologist (Sinologue) ; [명사] [때로 s~] 중국학자, 중국 연구가, 중국통 ;; 미국식 [sainɑ́lədƷist,si-] 영국식 [-nɔ́-] [본문으로]
11. mangonel ; 투석기(投石機)(중세의무기). ;; 미국∙영국 [mǽŋɡənèl] [본문으로]
12. emissary ; (pl. -sar·ies) 1. 사절, 사자(messenger), ((특히)) 밀사(密使) ;; 2. 밀정, 간첩(spy) [본문으로]
13. concur ; 문어(~red; ~·ring) 1. <둘 이상의 의견이> 일치하다, 동의하다(agree) ((with)) ;; 3. 동시에 일어나다(coincide), 일시에 발생하다 ((with)) [본문으로]
14. esteemed ; [형용사] 존중받는; 존경받는; 호평받는. [본문으로]
15. bearing ; 1. [U] ~ on sth 관련, 영향 [본문으로]
16. bridal party ; [명사] (결혼식의) 신부측 사람들. [본문으로]
17. reconcile ; [vn] 1. ~ sth (with sth) (두 가지 이상의 생각・요구 등을) 조화시키다 [본문으로]
18. accord with ; …와 일치하다. [본문으로]
19. concordance ; 1. [U] 일치; 조화. ;; 2. (알파벳순의) 어구[용어] 색인. ;; 미국식 [kən|kɔ:rdəns] 영국식 [kən|kɔ:dəns] [본문으로]
20. demonstrably ; [부사] 논증할 수 있도록; 명백히, 논증에 의하여 [본문으로]
21. importance ; 2. 중요한 지위, 유력, 탁월, (사회적인) 무게, 관록(eminence, notability). [본문으로]
22. anachronistic ; 시대에 맞지 않는, 시대 착오의; 연대가 틀린[맞지 않는]. (또는 anachronistical) ;; 미국∙영국 [ənæ̀krənístik(əl)] [본문으로]
23. lay ; 2. (옛글투) (노래로 부르도록) 이야기체로 된 시[담시] [본문으로]
24. implausible ; 받아들이기 어려운, 믿기지 않는, 그럴 듯하지[정말 같지] 않은. [본문으로]
25. currency ; 1. (화폐의) 유통, 통용(通用)(circulation). ;; 2. (언어·사상·소문 등의) 유포, 유행(prevalence, vogue), 통용. [본문으로]
26. denomination ; 4. (화폐 등의) 단위 (명칭); (화폐·증권의) 액면 금액 [본문으로]
27. cowry ; [명사] 별보배고둥, 자패무리(옛날에 미개지에서는 화폐로 사용) [본문으로]
28. monograph ; [명사] (전문 용어) (단일 주제에 관해 보통 단행본 형태로 쓴) 논문 ;; 미국식 [|mɑ:nəgrӕf] 영국식 [|mɒnəgrɑ:f] [본문으로]
29. oral transmission ; 구전 [본문으로]
30. sojourn ; (일시적인) 체류, 체재, 묵음 ;; (문예체) 체류 ;; 미국식 [|soʊdƷɜ:rn] 영국식 [|sɒdƷən] [본문으로]
31. in essence ; 본질에 있어서, 본질적으로 [본문으로]