Marco Polo was born in the city-state of Venice to a leading family of merchants in 1254. At the time of his birth, Venice was a center for trade in Europe and a very powerful city-state. Because Venice was a trading power, many merchants like Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, Marco Polo’s father and uncle, became very rich and influential: “Venetian trade was expanding at a rate which was never again to be equaled . . . many Venetian merchants made their fortunes through carrying trade in the Black Sea. Among these were the Polos, who owned a house in the Crimean port of Soldaia.” Niccolò and Maffeo traded goods, such as silks and dyes from the Near East, to places like Constantinople and Crimea. Along with his father and uncle, Marco Polo accomplished many things, but he is most remembered for his journey along the Silk Road and the discoveries he made during the journey. The travels and discoveries of Marco Polo, as well as his legacy, made Polo one of the most important people of the Middle Ages.
The education and early life of Marco Polo contributed to his great successes as an adult. At the time of Marco Polo’s birth, his father Niccolò and uncle Maffeo were away trading in Constantinople. When “ the political situation in Constantinople grew so precarious that it was dangerous to try to return to Venice,” the Polo brothers left Constantinople and fled to Crimea. Eventually, they ended up in the city of Beijing, the new capital of the Mongol Empire. The court of the Great Kublai Khan welcomed the Polos and allowed them to stay in Beijing for a year. After some time, Kublai Khan requested that the Polo brothers bring him holy oil from the pope. While the Polo brothers made their first visit to the Far East, the young Marco Polo rem...
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...avelogue in the world. Marco Polo became very important to history through his discoveries and the writing of The Travels of Marco Polo.
The legacy left by Marco Polo has helped him become one of the most distinguished people in the Middle Ages. Although Marco Polo was not the first European to travel into China, he did travel the farthest and reached lands that no Europeans had seen. The only people who had gone to the Far East before Marco Polo were monks hoping to convert the Mongols to Christianity. On his journey, Marco Polo made many important discoveries. The Travels of Marco Polo served as the first Western record of coal, gunpowder, printing, paper money, and silk. Amazed by the use of paper, Polo wrote: “With these pieces of paper they can buy anything and pay for anything. And I can tell you that the papers that reckon as ten bezants do not weigh one."
When comparing the Chinese and Western historical development, the similar key events would have very different outcomes due to their different backgrounds. During the fifteenth century, Zheng He was commissioned to lead the “treasure ships” for seven voyages down the Western Seas. And, Prince Henry sent expeditions to explore the western coast of Africa. China and Portugal, the both ends of the Eurasian continent, almost simultaneously began marine navigations. They have shared some similar features, but there are actually major differences between the two. This paper will compare and contrast these two remarkable explorers. The focus will be on the ideas and circumstances that influenced their actions, and their importance in shaping history.
Upon returning to Europe, Polo reported on Asian technologies that had been previously unknown of. These included the silk produced, astrolabe, the compass and the movable-block printing. These technologies became commodities in Europe of high demand. Therefore, much of Asia has a large export. This gained them respect on the European stage.
Exploration is an activity that is held in high esteem because of the mental challenge that comes with willingly surrendering the safety of certainty to venture into unknown land. This act is seen as reflecting the utmost courage. Although this may be true, it is important to realize that more often than not, explorers had certain expectations regarding the places they were traveling to. This fact was strongly reflected in the nature of their accounts. In Marco Polo’s case, his father and uncle had observed “many things worth of admiration… in the progress of their journey,” which took place several years before Marco Polo set off from Venice . Marco Polo surely heard about the great things they had come across. He came in knowing that, despite the risks of such long travel, the things that he would see would be unlike anything that he had ever met before. Perhaps, this was Polo’s motivation. It is never explicitly stated, but it may be that Polo was driven by curiosity. He merely wanted to learn more about the great culture he had heard about.
Marco Polo also helps establish the European Universities. The European universities only taught Latin and Greek.
Accompanied by 27,000 men on 62 large and 255 small ships, the Chinese eunuch Zheng He, led 7 naval expeditions to Southeast Asia, Middle East and east coast of Africa in the span of 28 years during the Ming Dynasty. The scale of Zheng He’s fleet was unprecedented in world history. The large treasure ships used during the expeditions were purported to be 440 feet long and 180 feet wide (Dreyer, p. 102). Throughout his travels, Zheng He brought Chinese tea, porcelain and silk products to foreign countries and also brought back exotic goods to the Ming court such as spices, plants and leather. Although his voyages fostered commercial trades and cultural exchange between China and foreign countries, the goal of his expeditions stemmed from the political motivation to maintain the tributary system and his voyages had important political implication of causing Neo-Confucian opposition and suspension of the expedition.
Nowadays the wide array of transportation means and infrastructures at our disposal has made it relatively easy for us to travel from one country to another; even when those countries are thousands of miles away from each other. However, during the 13th and 14th centuries, travelling was not that easy. Yet, two men, the Italian tradesman Marco Polo and the Moroccan Jurist Ibn Battuta became famous for having managed to perform extremely long distance journeys away from their home country. At the end of their long travels, both men shared their experiences with the world via the books, The Travels of Marco Polo and The Travels of Ibn Battuta. An analysis of those two texts reveals two things. On one hand, Marco Polo remained a cultural outsider to the people he met during his travels, thus enhancing his power of observation and stimulating his curiosity. On the other hand, Ibn Battuta travelled as an insider, and consequently he judged the people he met only in light of his Muslim background.
Many children, including myself, have once played the game Marco Polo. Although, I have always been curious, who exactly is Marco Polo? My fascination of Marco Polo warped into a fixation of his travels. Marco Polo was born in Venice in the year 1254. His father, Nicolo, and his uncle, Maffeo, were merchants who had seats in the great nobleman council of Venice (Polo IV). According to his records, he had traveled thousands of miles with his father and uncle.
Different explorers sought out to discover new things, but many didn’t achieve their ultimate goal. Some explorers even discovered things by chance. Henry Hudson was an English explorer who went on many voyages to get new information about North America and to find a passage way to Asia, which he never achieved. Jacques Cartier was a French explorer who is known for exploring the St. Lawrence River and Canada. Francisco Pizarro was a Spanish explorer and soldier discovered the Pacific Ocean and conquered Peru. Each explorer discussed, discovered new things which have an impact in modern
In the early part of the 15th century C.E., a massive fleet of Chinese ships went on a series of seven voyages under the direction of Admiral Zheng He (The Ming Dynasty: Exploration to Isolation). For approximately 30 years, China sailed it's ships around Southeast Asia, India, and even East Africa trading exotic goods and reportedly establishing political alliances (Viviano). In addition, many estimate the Chinese flagship as being about 4.5 times larger than a European ship of the time period (Hadingham). These accounts of Zheng He's voyages can be used to argue that China in the early 15th century was the equal or possibly even superior to Europeans in terms of technology, navigation, trade, and it's political scope. Despite these voyages tremendous success, a faction of Confu...
Zheng He was born in 1371, Kunyang Yunnan province, China and died in 1433, Calicut, now Kozhikode. He was an admiral, explorer, eunuch, diplomat, and trader, whose adventures brought great wealth and riches to China and spread its religions and influences across Southeast Asia, Persia, Arabia, Africa and India. He was always remembered for his greatness and his leadership in the expeditions and adventures he made. He made a whooping number of SEVEN voyages, each aiming extend Chinese maritime and establish trade across all these places.
There is a debate whether or not Marco Polo truly went to China. The side that does not believe Marco Polo traveled to China has this view because Marco Polo did not mention the Great Wall. In addition, the Chinese culture was not noted of. Being a foreigner, Marco Polo did not write about these strange things such as foot binding, calligraphy and etcetera. Not only that, but Marco Polo did not catch onto and learn the Chinese language due to the time he was there. Also, Marco Polo was not mentioned or documented about directly in the Chinese writings. However, three Venetians were written about.
After receiving a job in a minor administrative position for the Mongol ruler, Marco Polo stayed in China for another seventeen years. Throughout this time he wildly traveled across the Chinese land and collected stories about his experiences in the foreign country. His book, The Travels of Marco Polo helped to shape Western European culture, though scholars question the legitimacy behind his stories since he left out many prominent features of the Chinese life.
Around the time of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Europe was a place in need of inspiration. Marco Polo, a merchant, and still a simple man, was this source of inspiration. He was an ordinary boy during his childhood, living a similar life to the other boys his age. Although his intentions might not have been as significant as his impact, he was very influential. Marco Polo served as an influence to many later explorers. Whether it was through his book, The Travels of Marco Polo, which focused mainly on descriptions of spices and commercial goods and many other interesting trade items he encountered in his travels, he sparked an interest and desire of not only Europe, but later explorers as well . Marco Polo was viewed to have had definite charm and also having much capability. He has also proven that he was a tough man. This is evident because of the many voyages he survived, which included occurrences of bandit ambushes, disease, and not to mention the fatigue of the travel. There have been many who believe that Marco Polo was not intellectually equipped, meaning that he was not a very educated man, as no European probably was at the time . But as always, there is of course some speculation on the many aspects of the life of Marco Polo. Many people have their own beliefs of whom the real Marco Polo was and what he accomplished. There will be mention on some of the alleged negative, yet also positive aspects of his life. Despite all the accusations or assumptions of Marco Polo, history was affected as a result of his existence. He still remains an important figure in history.
Marco Polo, is probably the most famous Westerner who ever traveled on the Silk Road. He excelled all the other travelers in his determination, his writing, and his influence. His journey through Asia lasted 24 years with the help of his father, Niccolò and Maffeo. He became a confidant of Kublai Khan, and traveled the whole of China and returned to tell the tale, which became the greatest travelogue. Marco Polo was a great explorer, who wrote a book written about his travels which gave Europeans some of their earliest information about China and inspired many explorers including Christopher Columbus.
Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564, in Pisa, Italy. He was a mathematics professor who made pioneering observations of nature with long-lasting implications for the study of physics. Galileo constructed a machine that changed everything in astronomy, the telescope, and this supported the Copernican theory. In 1600, Galileo met Marina Gamba, a Venetian woman, who gave him three children. The daughters were Virginia and Livia, and son Vincenzo. But He never married Marina because he feared his illegitimate children would threaten his social standing. He died in Arcetri, Italy, on January 8, 1642.