The Travels of Marco Polo “The Venetian”
The great explorer who are known today thought a personal record of their travels in an unknown lands, such as Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, or even Henry Hutson., Marco Polo keep a record of his travels from the starting of his journey as a young merchant through uncharted lands to the court of the Great Khans to which he later published it and called it The Travels of Marco Polo, the Venetian. During this era books where be copied by hand. This meant that there could be many errors not only from the process of copying the book itself, but the possibilities that a miss translating the book would happen. William Marsden was able to translated the original book of Marco Polo from old French
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The first book of the tetralogy starts with the two brothers, Nicolo and Maffeo Polo’s journey to Kublai Khan’s court. The brothers were the first Europeans that the Khan had ever met. Interested in all of the European facets of life, Kublai Khan was asked the brothers to deliver a letter to the Pope, in hopes of a potential relationship with this new people group he had discovered. When the Polo brothers returned home, they discovered that the Pope was dead so they returned to Venice, from which they first lived to wait for the next pope. During this wait and Niccolò Polo met his son Marco for the first time.
Marco Polo’s memoir of not only from a geographical perspective, traveling distances and conditions, but observations of religious practices and customs of the many people groups he had encountered is what makes his accounts so important. For
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For example an account is given of a battle led by the Great Khan himself:
The third book of the four books Marco Polo wrote about adventurous explorations of various lands on behalf of the Khan. Polo wrote not only of his topographical observances, he also wrote about the inhabitants of both humans and animals which he discovered and the cultures of which they belonged, for example
After seventeen years had passed in the Khan’s court, the Polo’s, who served as ambassadors and adventurers, decided that if they ever wanted to return to Venice they should do so under the protection of the Khan before he died, believing that they would be vulnerability to Kublai Khan’s enemies should it happen while they were still in company with the Khan. They asked his permission to return home, but the first time they asked the Great Khan, he refused because he was delight by their company. As time passed The Kublai Khan unenthusiastically agreed to let them return after they accompanied a Mongol princess Kokachin to marry to a Persian prince, who was Kublai Khans great-nephew, Arghun. The Khan supplied with them with fourteen ships that were prepared for the deliverance of the princes and voyage back to Venice, that is shown from this
To begin, one factor that supported Mongols in their conquests was their capacity for foraging, allowing them to survive under harsh living conditions. According to Marco Polo, a Venetian traveler that journeyed to Asia stated "They are capable of supporting every kind of privation, and when there is
Weatherford, J. McIver. Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world. New York: Crown, 2004.
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.
The most important constituent to the Mongols success was ‘a ruthless use of two psychological weapons, loyalty and fear’ (Gascoigne 2010). Ghengis Khan, the Mongol leader from 1206-1227, was merciless and made a guileful contrast in his treatment of nomadic kinsfolk and settled people of cities. For instance, a warrior of a rival tribe who bravely fights against Ghengis Khan and loses will be r...
Journey to The West"was written around 1500 to 1582 in Asia, while "Tartuffe" was written
For the purpose of better understanding, I start by providing some background information about each of the two men. Marco Polo was an Italian citizen born into a wealthy Venetian merchant family. His most significant travel experience came in 1271, when he set out with his father Nicolo and his uncle Maffeo on a journey to the court of the Mongol Emperor of China, Kubilai Khan. Polo returned only twenty four years later to his homeland of Venice. On the other hand, Ibn Battuta was a jurist from Morocco who left his native city- Tangier, in 1325, for a journey to the East that would cover a total of seventy-five thousand miles and keep him twenty nine years away from home. In this essay, I will be dealing primarily with the aforementioned ex...
Moral influence stimulates one's thoughts and direction within their interest. This changes within generations, for the reason that society is continuously evolving. The chronicles of two best sellers - The Travels of Marco Polo by Marco Polo and The Strange Stones: Dispatches from the East to West by Peter Hessler - gives a great example on how foreigners enter the Eastern world with mentality/behaviourism. From a merchant's perspective, to a journalist who immerses himself into the society, both authors bring two distinct perspectives to this topic. The impact of social standards, that have evolved over seven centuries, essentially affected the approach and research shown in both authors in perspective of women, religion, the commercial industry and under authority. Through their
Waugh, Teresa. The Travels of Marco Polo. New York: Sidgwick and Jackson Limited, 1984. Print. This source tells the reader about the specific locations that Marco polo traveled and explored. Each chapter and division in this source goes in depth into a different location; as well as providing visuals. This source has a lot of good information pertaining to the imprisonment of Marco Polo, and the scribe who recorded Marco's tales of his travels.
“Three explorers from the Age of Exploration” Age of Explorations was a time of discovery of the new world during the 15th through 17th century. Many Explorers were in search for new passage ways, new trading ports, new land, new spices, and riches. The three explorers discussed in this paper is Henry Hudson, Jacques Cartier, and Francisco Pizarro. Henry Hudson was an explorer whose main purpose was to find a route to Asia from Europe, he had a series of three voyages trying to achieve this. Jacques Cartier was sent to find riches and a route to Asia as well.
The problem with Marco Polo’s account is that there are one hundred and forty different versions. This means that it took over one hundred years for the account to become a part of Europe’s history. In addition, many people added on to Marco Polo’s account to influence views. Fo...
Primary Source Analysis 2 / Chapter 7: Travelers’ Tales and Observations (Sources 7.1 / 7.2)
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.
...gers he , Ibn Battuta overcame them. Ibn Battuta traveled primarily in Muslim-ruled lands, in comparison to Marco Polo. Both men dictated accounts of their travels after they had returned home Polo, while in prison in the year of 1928 and Ibn Battuta, to a Moroccan scribe, since neither were trained, both Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta judged those they ran into by their own values. Both travels financial records exposed the great variety in Eurasian cultures during the year 1354- 1355. “When a man is riding through this [Gobi] desert by night and for some reason ... he gets separated from his companions ... he hears spirit voices talking to him ...Often these voices lure him away from the path and he never finds it again." This was one of the quotes he had written. This quote describes some part of his travels. He had moved away from people he loved for a few years.
...people, including the princess and the Polos, were still alive. Later, in Turkey, Genoese officials took three-quarters of the family's wealth. After two years of travel, the Polos reached Venice. They'd been gone for more than two decades, and their return to their native land undoubtedly had its difficulties. Their faces looked unfamiliar to their family and they struggled to speak their native tongue. Just a few years after his return to Venice, Marco commanded a ship in a war against the rival city of Genoa. He was eventually captured and sentenced to a Genoese prison. There he wrote a book called,The Description of the World, later known as The Travels of Marco Polo.Two hundred years after his death, Christopher Columbus set off across the Atlantic in hopes of finding a new route to the Orient. With him was a copy of The Travels of Marco Polo.
This story can be summarized by dividing the story into three major sections that represent a genealogy of the Genghis Khan ancestors, the lifestyle of Genghis Khan and the story of Genghis son and Ogodei his successor. This piece of early time’s literature was translated and edited by Jack Weatherford and it was not released until 16th February, 2010. The piece of work restores early history’s most prominent figures to the positions they rightfully deserves. It clears the picture of the nomadic lifestyle of the Mongols and it is rich with information regarding the society of the Mongols in the 12th and the 13th centuries” (Kahn, 2005).