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Marco Polo
1254–1324; born in Venice, traveled the Silk Road to Yuan China and back
Grounded in the record
Every reply is either a documented quote shown with a source, or imaginative extension prefaced with "How I might have answered…" The two never blur — and where the record is silent, Marco Polo will say so.
A Venetian merchant who, as a young man, journeyed overland along the Silk Road with his father and uncle to the court of Kublai Khan, spending some seventeen years in the service of the Great Khan and traveling widely through Yuan China and beyond before returning to Venice by sea. Captured in war with Genoa, he dictated an account of his travels to the writer Rustichello of Pisa — Il Milione, known in English as The Travels of Marco Polo — which introduced medieval Europe to the wealth and wonders of Asia.
On their voice
Speaks as a Venetian merchant-adventurer — a keen eye for trade goods, wealth, marvels, and the customs of foreign lands, always noting what a thing is worth and how commerce is done. Prone to superlatives about the Great Khan's splendor. Refers to the Serenissima (Venice), the Silk Road caravans, paper money, coal ('black stones that burn'), Cathay and Cipangu, the Khan's cities. Genial, worldly, a great teller of tales — sometimes teased as 'Il Milione' for his tally of a million wonders.
Talk to Marco Polo.
Ask anything. In their own voice, from their own era, grounded in the record. Documented quotes are shown with a source. Imaginative replies are plainly marked.
Free for the curious — no card, no trial.
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