Marco Polo Research Paper

Marco Polo and His Courageous Journey to China

Marco Polo was born in 1254 in Venice, Italy. Venice was the center of commerce in the Mediterranean Sea, where the Polos had lived for a very long time since Marco was just a little boy. The Polo family was full of great nobles, but yet the family was not complete. When Marco Polo was young, his mother had passed away, and his father and uncle became successful jewel merchants, who had lived in Asia for almost all of his childhood. Because of the many travels of Marco Polo, he was able to bring back valuable information to the people of Europe, and influenced many of the travelers at that time.

Marco Polo was well educated in merchants subjects and the handling of cargo ships.

When Marco was

young, he didn’t speak much Latin. Even though he did know four other languages, he never quite learned how to speak Latin very well. He was also very influential with his writing and his determination on other travelers, when at sea.
Marco may not have his mother and his father, but he does have two brothers.

He went with his brothers on a long journey East. “They passed through Armenia, Persia, and Afghanistan, over the Pamirs, and all along the Silk Road to China” (“Marco Polo and His Travels”). He was only 17 years old at this time. They went through the Gobi Desert where it was hot, dry, and they had very little to eat. Then they went to a city called Suchow, where he had stayed for a year. He learned about the asbestos industry here. He stated, “The way to clean asbestos cloth was to throw it into a fire, and that a specimen was brought back from Cathay by the Polos and presented to the Pope” (“Marco Polo and His Travels). His next travel was to

Mongolia.
When we was there, he noticed that all the women did all the work, and the men could marry almost any and all the women they wanted. If the father died, the sons were allowed to marry the widowed wives, but never their own mother. The men also spent a lot of time drinking alcohol. (“Marco Polo and His Travels”). He became good friends with Kublai Khan and he learned to speak the language. “He quickly gained Kublai Khan’s confidence and traveled throughout China as his messenger and spy” (Pruech). Most people would have been scared to travel in this side of the world, but Marco Polo wasn't. This area “was heavily patrolled. The merchants also carried a special passport from the Khan; It was a gold tablet about a foot long and three inches wide. Horses, food, lodging and guides were freely given to anyone carrying the Khan’s passport” (Greene). He was here for many years.
Marco got really sick when we was in Afghanistan. He had to rest for more than a year. “When he could finally travel again, he rode camels across deserts. He climbed mountains that were called the ‘rooftop of the world.’ He shopped at bazaars, with men in turbans weaving colorful rugs and spelling spices” (Pruech). After 17 years here, Marco decided it was time to go home. He told Kublai Khan that he would escort one of his princesses to Persia, as a plan to escape from Khan. He did escort her, but instead of going back to Venice.
“Twenty-four years after leaving Venice, and now dressed like a Mongol, Marco landed on the docks.

The odors, the church bells, the clothing, and the city sites were now strange” (Greene). When he got back to Venice, everything was strange to him, and he barely remembered the Italian language. He tried to tell everybody about the things he had see in his travels, but they all laughed at him. Everything was so unimaginable, that they thought he was making it up (Greene). He did bring back some things however, that they had never seen. He brought a compass that had been invented by the Chinese. “In addition to technology, Marco Polo brought back with him, paper, paper currency, porcelain, raw silk, ivory, jade, spices, and noodles. Among the most significant of these items was paper” (“Marco Polo’s Effects on the East and the West”). Even with all of the things he brought back, the people still did not believe his stories.

While he was in Venice, he found that Venice was at war with the Republic of Genoa. He went to war on the side of Venice, and was caught by the Genoese, and put in prison. “After being imprisoned during the Venetian-Genoese War, Marco Polo told his stories to his cellmate, who later documented Polo’s accounts of his travels into a book, later entitled ‘The Travels of Marco Polo” (“Marco Polo’s Effects on the East and the West”). After people read this book, everyone began to wonder if he had been telling the truth. They were curious about this Eastern

civilization he had been talking about.
Now that people were beginning to think that he was telling the truth, some, too, then decided they wanted to explore the east. One of the most famous of the explorers was Christopher Columbus. “People like Christopher Columbus, Magellan, and Gama, all were caught up with the curiosity of the unknown, and trekked to discover the undiscovered of which would be the homes of civilizations unseed to the Europeans before, including the Native Americans and Africans. The Age of Exploration started with Marco Polo and his own exploration to the East” (“Marco Polo’s Effects on the East and the West”).
For the most part, this Age of Exploration was because of Marco Polo and his journeys. All of the things that Marco Polo brought back from his journeys, as well as the stories and the book that was published made people curious enough to go explore other parts of the world. “Marco Polo’s trek was a monumental stepping stone to the progression of the industrial eras and national growth of many nations around the world, both inside and outside of Europe to Asia” (“Marco Polo’s Effects on the East and the West”). It’s hard to imagine what this world would be like if Marco Polo had never been born.