Journeys

Journeys

(Tr. Sp-Eng. from a review in Shvoong)

 Marco Polo, Venice merchants' son, had the luck and privilege to make one of the more interesting travels of his time, when journeys were overland or by sea and on the trip you could see what happened around. His trip from Venice to the far East, following the Silk Road, made the story of his experiences was considered even fantastic by his contemporaries.

  Marco Polo was seventeen years old when in the company of his father, Nicholas, and his uncle, Matthew, both traders from the thriving city-state of Venice, began his extraordinary journey in 1271. His long tour took him through Armenia, Persia, India, the fabulous city of Baghdad, the Tibet, the islands of Java, Zanzibar, Madagascar, Russia, and the enigmatic and closed China. In this country, he lived in the Court of the Emperor of Mongolian origin, Kublai Khan, witnessed battles where elephants participated, spoke with Chinese wizards and astrologers, and with Tibetan lamas, lived both in Royal palaces and in nomads' tents, took part in hunts with trained tigers and became emperor Kublai Kan's ambassador, governor and spy.

  In1295, Marco Polo returned to Venice and there he embroilded in the conflict that his city kept with the city of Genoa for the commercial supremacy in the Mediterranean Sea. When taking part in the naval battle of Curzola, as commander of a galley, he was made prisoner by the Genoese. In the prison where he was hold, he met Rustichello of Pisa, the writer whom, in prison, he told his extraordinary journey and the experiences it provided to him, so the writing reflected in a book entitled The Book of Wonders. In it, we can find a considerable list of singularities of various territories and towns, narrated with the ease and the amenity of the good chronicler that Marco Polo was.