Another retelling I’ve used that has a lot of good background and some wonderful illustrations is Laurence Bergreen’s Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), “Bergreen.”
For general background I read Colin Thubron’s Shadow of the Silk Road (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), “Thubron”; Jean Bowie Shor’s After You, Marco Polo (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1955), “Shor”; the 11th edition Encyclopedia Britannica essay “Marco Polo”; and Leonardo Olschki’s Marco Polo’s Asia: An Introduction to His Description of the World, translated by John A. Scott (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960).
To add to what Marco Polo told about desert life and travel, I read T. E. Lawrence’s Revolt in the Desert (London: Jonathan Cape, 1927), “Lawrence,” and Charles M. Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta, edited by Edward Garnett (New York: Scribner’s, 1908), “Doughty.”
Specifics about life in late-thirteenth-century Venice, what it looked like, and the design of galleys and junks are historically accurate. As for Marco’s personal experiences and what he felt about them, I wrote what I imagined based on the experiences of others in similar circumstances.
The quote on page 259 is from Marco Barbaro’s account of the Polo family. It appears in Y-C, Introduction, vol. 1, p. 25.
NOTES
Marco Polo lived from 1254 to 1324. He lived seventy years—a remarkably long life for his time, proof that he was both tough and lucky. So far as we know, he was only sick once—in the mountains approaching the Pamir Plateau.
He left Venice in November 1271, age seventeen, and arrived at Xanadu, Kublai’s summer palace in Mongolia, three and a half years later, in May 1275. He served in Kublai’s court for seventeen years, until 1292, and arrived back in Venice in 1295. Captured in a sea fight with the Genoese in September 1298, he was held prisoner until August 1299. In captivity he told his adventures to a writer of popular romances named Rustichello, who wrote what we know variously as Marco Polo’s Marvels, The Book of Travels, or Description of the World.
Chapter 1, Packing Light: “Amongst the explorers to whom we owe such knowledge as we possess about the Gobi, the most important have been Marco Polo …”—Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1910–11), “Gobi,” vol. 12, p. 165.
Chapter 2, Marco Polo’s Hilton: I first encountered the carved red camel in Salley Vickers’s Miss Garnet’s Angel (New York: HarperCollins, 2000).
Mark heard Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” in the café.
Many buildings in Venice slant because the oak, ash, and elm pilings they’re built upon have settled into the island mud over the years. A good description of Venetian building techniques with excellent illustrations is in the Eyewitness Travel Guide: Venice and the Veneto (London: DK Publishing, 2004), pp. 20–21.
Chapter 3, Marco Polo’s Pillow: For more about Venetian galleys, see Y-C, Introduction, vol. 1, section 5, “Digression concerning the war-galleys of the Mediterranean States in the Middle Ages,” pp. 31–41, and Frederic Chapin Lane’s Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1934), chap. 1, “The Galleys,” particularly pp. 7–13.
Chapter 4, The Wheezing Sickness: A gripping description of asthma and the history of its treatment is in David McCullough’s biography of Teddy Roosevelt, Mornings on Horseback (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981).
I’ve imagined Boss based on Marco’s description of Kublai’s mastiffs: Y-C, vol. 1, chap. 19, “Concerning [those] who have charge of the Khan’s hounds,” pp. 400–401. Elsewhere he remarks that the Tibetan shamans were accompanied by “the very largest mastiff dogs in the world, which are as large as asses and are very good at catching all sorts of wild beasts” (Bergreen, p. 175).
Chapter 5, The School of the Street: Marco Polo mentions “apples of Paradise” in book 1, chap. 18 (p. 97 in the Y-C edition, and see note 1 to that chapter, p. 99). For more on this subject, see Beryl Brintnall Simpson and Molly Connor Ogorzaly’s “Citrus Fruits” in Economic Botany: Plants in Our World (New York: McGraw Hill, 1995), p. 121.
“The Silk Road” is the modern name given to a veining of trade routes that went from what we know today as the Chinese city of Xi’an, some by northern routes, some by southern, to entrepôts on the Black and Mediterranean Seas. For a contemporary description, see Thubron, p. 3.
Did Marco Polo go to China? Some scholars, like Frances Wood in The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), say he didn’t. They think he made up his story from other travelers’ accounts. If he did, he wove silk from straw.
I think Marco did go to Xanadu, and on to China. The Travels doesn’t feel like something worked up from other writers’ scraps. All those extraordinary details are like whorls in a fingerprint, unique and compelling right from the start with Marco’s coming-home story. Where had he been for such a long time? We also know from official records that when the Polos arrived at the Black Sea port of Trebizond on their way home, the Genoese took some of their cargo. Where had they been?
No pictures of Marco Polo are known to have been made during his lifetime. See Y-C, Introduction, p. 75.
To get some idea of what Marco’s schooling might have been like, see John Larner’s Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 37.
I’ve imagined Mustafa, although I’m pretty sure Marco learned about China from someone—or several—like him in the school of the street. Doughty suggested to me his advice to Marco and some of his expressions.
For the desert pirates’ attack and their magical devilish darkness of dry fog, see Y-C, vol. 1, book 1, chap. 18, and note 4 to that chapter. These are also described in M-P, p. 122.
Concerning Ladino, the traders’ language, see Max Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).
Chapter 7, Marco’s Homecoming: The story of the Polos’ return to Venice is given in Y-C, vol. 1, “Personal History of the Travellers,” p. 25.
The gold stick that served the Polos as money and passport—“paiza of the Mongols”—is pictured on the inside cover of Y-C, vol. 1.
Chapter 8, Marco Goes Crazy: The gambit is described in Y-C, vol. 1, “Personal History of the Travellers,” p. 25.
Chapter 9, Stealing the Bones: In my imagining, both Mark’s father and Dr. Hornaday were in Kirkuk together during the Gulf War. For an account of Hussein’s 1988 gas attack, see “Dedicated Group Hopes to Prove Chemicals Killed Kurds,” The New York Times, International Section, June 25, 2006, p. 4.
I’ve taken liberties with what is known about the Venetian merchants who collected Saint Mark’s relics. For a bare-bones account, see Patrick Geary’s Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).
The guidebooks I’ve used are Venice and the Veneto (London: DK Publishing, Inc., 2004) and Alta Macadam’s Blue Guide Venice (London: Somerset Books, 2007).
Chapter 10, Blindman’s Bluff: The medieval Europeans’ conception of “dog-headed men” probably came from travelers’ descriptions of Chinese temple guardians—hideous terra-cotta grotesques glazed green and brown with fists raised in fury, the screaming heads twisted upward.
As for the idea of silk growing on trees, perhaps an early traveler saw a cocoon on a mulberry tree and figured it was some sort of fruit or seed. For centuries the cultivation of silk was a closely guarded secret to protect China’s most valuable export. In terms of value and volume, silk was the principal commodity carried on the road.
The working of silk goes back more than six thousand years. Colin Thubron reports that a Neolithic carver scratched the image of a silkworm on an ivory cup and that other early sites have yielded red silk ribbon. His tellings of the legend of Lei-tzu discovering silk and the silk moth’s tragic life are vivid (Thubron, pp. 4, 124–126). On pages 124–126 he tells how silk is prepared.
Chapter 11, A Secret Mission: I
think the doge sent the Polos to Kublai. Some authorities say they sent themselves as merchants; others think it was the pope—for example, William Dalrymple in “The Venetian Treasure Hunt,” a review of Venice and the Islamic World, 828–1797, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York Review of Books, July 19, 2007, pp. 29–31.
About my hunch that Jewish merchants helped the Polos, see Benjamin Arbel’s Trading Nations: Jews and Venetians in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean (New York: E. J. Brill, 1995). Amitav Ghosh’s In an Antique Land (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993) tells the story of Abraham Ben Yiju, a twelfth-century Jewish trader in a network that ran from Egypt to India. For other accounts see S. D. Goitein’s Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973).
The money letters that the thirteenth-century merchant-financiers sent to one another were a means for a buyer in one place to arrange for payment from funds far distant without having to ship specie. See Frederic C. Lane and Reinhold C. Mueller’s Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985); Mueller’s The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200–1500 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); and Edmund B. Fryde’s Studies in Medieval Trade and Finance (London: Hambledon Press, 1983).
For information about Mongol maps, see Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004), especially chap. 9, “The Golden Light,” pp. 222–223.
Chapter 12, How Marco’s Story Got Told: Concerning Islamic calligraphy, see Sheila S. Blair’s Islamic Calligraphy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006). For a more general discussion of the art of Islam, E. H. Gombrich’s The Story of Art (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1984) has an excellent brief discussion, “Looking Eastwards,” chap. 7 in the 14th edition.
For information about the immense Chinese junks and the compass used by Oriental navigators, see Mansel Davies’s A Selection from the Writings of Joseph Needham, edited by Mansel Davies (London: McFarland & Company, 1994), specifically “China, Europe, and the Seas Between,” pp. 166–177; and Sean McGrail’s “Marco Polo” in Boats of the World from the Stone Age to Medieval Times (London: Oxford University Press, 2001), section 10.6, pp. 377–381.
The sea fight with Genoa probably took place in 1298. It is described in Frederic C. Lane’s Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1934).
For more about the battle and Marco’s capture and how Marco’s book got written, see Y-C, Introduction, p. 6; section 6, “The Jealousies and Naval Wars of Venice and Genoa,” pp. 41–55; and section 7, “Rusticiano or Rustichello of Pisa, Marco Polo’s Fellow-Prisoner at Genoa, the Scribe Who Wrote Down the Travels,” pp. 55–64.
For more about different versions and editions of The Travels, see John Larner’s Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), pp. 3–7, 58.
Concerning the nickname “Marco Milione” and the Venetian masque figures, see Y-C, Introduction, pp. 67–68.
Chapter 13, To the Court of Kublai Khan: I’ve drawn some of the desert detail from Doughty and Lawrence. Both borrowed from Marco’s telling.
The account of mountain travel with yaks and the setting I’ve used for my description of Marco recovering from his illness are drawn from Shor. The gap-vaulting yak is hers.
Marco’s description of the post stations and bell-wearing runners is taken from M-P, pp. 242–245.
Chapter 14, Marco Meets Kublai: Xanadu and Kublai’s tent palace are described in Y-C, vol. 1, book 1, chap. 61, pp. 298–304, and see notes 2–5, pp. 304–308.
Marco’s description of the humbling bar is taken from M-P, p. 219. His illness approaching the Pamir highlands is taken from M-P, p. 142. For a map, see Y-C, vol. 1, “Marco Polo Itineraries,” no. 3, pp. 178–179.
Concerning the stitched vessels the Polos spurned, see Y-C, vol. 1, chap. 19, and note 3, pp. 117–119. A useful feature of such craft was their flexibility—they were not as likely to break up landing in surf as was a more rigid spike-secured plank vessel. For more about them, see Sean McGrail’s Boats of the World from the Stone Age to Medieval Times, section 6.7.3, pp. 269–272.
As for the unhealthy heat and deadly winds of Hormuz—“a very sickly place,” in Marco’s words—see Y-C, vol. 1, book 1, chap. 19, note 4, pp. 119–120, and note 5, p. 120, “History of Hormuz,” note 6, pp. 120–121.
Hormuz and the sewn plank boats are also described in M-P, pp. 123–125.
Oil for camel itch: See Y-C, vol. 1, book 1, chap. 3, p. 46, and note 5 on p. 49 about the “springs of naphtha” on the Baku Peninsula on the Caspian Sea “supplying the whole country as far as Baghdad.” The itch was probably mange.
The village wiped out by Kublai’s grandfather may have been Balkh. See Thubron, pp. 234–235.
Chapter 15, On the Gobi: For more about the oasis wells and their purging salts, see Y-C, vol. 1, book 1, chap. 20, p. 123, and note 2 on p. 124.
The story of the camel following the pelt of her dead calf is taken from Lawrence, p. 247.
Marco’s description of the shrines at Dunhuang is in M-P, pp. 150–159.
Chapter 16, A Great Miracle: For Marco on paper money, see M-P, pp. 238–240, and Jonathan M. Bloom, Paper Before Print (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 139–141.
Chapter 17, His Impertinence Beards the Emperor: The Marco Milione mask and its use in the Venetian masques is noted in Y-C, Introduction, p. 67. Koumiss is fermented mares’ milk. It is nourishing, effervescent, unpleasantly pungent, and somewhat alcoholic. For more about it, see Y-C, vol. 1, “Kimiz or Kumiz,” note 2 to chapter 53, pp. 259–260.
The eye ointment Marco describes—“tutty”—we know as zinc oxide. Marco’s account is given in Y-C, vol. 1, book 1, chap. 21, p. 125, and see note 2, p. 126.
Solomon’s dream is recounted in I Kings 3:9.
Chapter 18, The Wonders of China: For more about Chinese astronomy and the preparation of the all-important almanacs, see Nathan Sivin’s Granting the Seasons: The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280, with an Annotated Translation and Study of Its Many Dimensions. I am grateful to Dr. Sivin for sharing with me an early draft of parts of his book concerning Kublai’s interest in astronomy in connection with preparing the Chinese calendar and his reliance on Muslim astronomists to help read heavenly signs and portents.
For a description of how Marco’s Travels inspired Columbus, see S. E. Morison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, Inc., 1942), pp. 64–69, 237–238, and Y-C, Introduction, p. 106.
Marco never mentions taking notes as he traveled, and none have turned up, but I think he must have, so I’ve imagined his method.
Burial rites are described in M-P, pp. 151–152.
Kublai’s secret garden and Marco’s contributions are my conjecture. For more about his elephants, see M-P, pp. 210–211.
Marco’s description of Kublai’s priest is given in Y-C, book 1, chap. 61, pp. 301–303, and see notes 8–10, pp. 309–314.
Kublai also employed Kashmirian conjurers. These are described in Y-C, book 1, chap. 31, and see note 2, p. 168.
The story of the sparrow in the castle is based on the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The speech in favor of Christianity is by one of King Edwin’s Saxon noblemen. Professor Michèle Mulcahey, Department of Medieval History, School of History, University of St. Andrews, suggested this when I asked her how Marco might have described his faith to Kublai.
The stories Marco tells Kublai are drawn not in order from the Y-C edition of The Travels.
The capture of Baghdad story is in Y-C, book 1, chap. 6, “Of the Great City of Baudas, and How It Was Taken,” pp. 63–68. I’ve added my imagining of the battle to Marco’s account.
Chapter 19, The Plot: Kublai suffered from gout—the accumulation of
crystals of ureic acid around the joints (usually in the feet)—for which, as then, there is no sure remedy, although a change of diet can help (reduced protein, simpler food), and certain drugs can be prescribed to reduce the body’s tendency to accumulate ureic acid.
The fine dust Marco encountered is called loess, a kind of silt that forms a fertile topsoil in several parts of the world.
I’ve imagined the plot and the confrontation with Kublai.
Chapter 20, Escape!: The story is given in Y-C, vol. 1, “Prologue,” chaps. 17–18, pp. 31–37.
For more about the Strait of Malacca, see Peter Gwin’s “Dangerous Straits,” National Geographic, vol. 212, no. 4 (October 2007), p. 126.
Noble Mauricio, the princess’s gray donkey, does not appear in The Travels. He owes his presence and some of his habits to Mary Ellen Chase’s The Golden Asse and Other Essays (New York: Henry Holt & Co, 1929).
Concerning cholera, see Sandra Hempel’s The Medical Detective: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera (London: Grantia Books, 2006).
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arbel, Benjamin. Trading Nations: Jews and Venetians in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean. New York: E. J. Brill, 1995.
Ashtor, Eliyahu. The Levant Trade in the Later Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.
Bergreen, Laurence. Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.
Blair, Sheila S. Islamic Calligraphy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006.
Bloom, Jonathan M. Paper Before Print. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
Carboni, Stefano. “Moments of Vision: Venice and the Islamic World 828–1797,” introduction to exhibition catalog, Venice and the Islamic World, 828–1797. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007, 12–35.
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