Marco Polo: The Venetian Merchant

Aditya Shevtekar

Marco Polo: The Venetian Merchant

Explorers, travelers, and traders were rampant even during the fifteenth century and they were inspired and guided by a great deal about Asia by the book called “The Travels of Marco Polo”. This Venetian merchant and explorer were one of the most famous travelers of the medieval era. Much like his travel expedition, his life was also full of adventure. A peep into his adventurous travels is more than enough to ignite the spark of our hidden traveling spirit.

The Route of Marco Polo’s journey (source: Wikipedia)

If the world today is a network of inter and intra-information exchange through satellites, there was a time in history when the only source of such information or cultural exchange was possible through travelers sent by royal patrons. The travelogues or books of records compiled by these dedicated travelers who spent years in foreign kingdoms across the globe have become a veritable source of recorded data of those bygone centuries, for historians today. One of the greatest of such travelers was Marco Polo who stayed for twenty years in the court of Kublai Khan of China apart from his global voyage including India.

Marco first saw his father when he was fifteen years old. His father left his pregnant mother in 1254 to travel to Asia, and he returned after fifteen years. Marco’s father and uncle traveled through much of Asia and met Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan dynasty. This was the first encounter of the Polos with Khans, which turned into very good diplomatic and administrative relations.

In just two years of the return of his father and uncle from Asia, Marco joined them to travel at the age of seventeen in 1271 and did not return to his hometown for the next twenty-four years. So much of his travel in eastern Asia was possible because of the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan. He was impressed by young Marco’s intelligence and made him his foreign emissary.

Marco was appointed for diplomatic work in present-day Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Burma, and India. Some of these places were so remote that the next European to visit and write about them was in the 19th century. Knowing and understanding the prowess of the Polos in foreign missions, Khan was not ready to let them go. He refused several of their requests to go home. Finally, after 17 years, he gave permission for their return. In 1295 Marco arrived in Venice with lots of gold, treasures, and wealth.

At that time, Venice was at war with the neighboring kingdom of Genoa. Marco participated in the war commanding Venetian forces but was captured by the enemy forces and imprisoned. In prison, he met a man called Rustichello, a writer. Rustichello asked Marco to tell the stories of his travels, so he could write, and thus the book called “The Travels of Marco Polo” came into being.

The book had a great impact on medieval and early modern explorers, merchants, and missionaries. In 1299 when the war was over, all the prisoners were released. After his adventurous life, Marco Polo married Donata Badoer and had three daughters. Marco then stayed in Venice for the rest of his life and died in 1324.

Though Marco Polo had not specifically traveled to discover the Indian subcontinent or its kingdoms, he noted key and important information about the land (southern part of India) that helps to understand the social life of India back then. Marco described the hot climate of the region, because of which people wore soft fabrics. He calls the region ‘the richest and the most splendid province in the world’.

Marco wrote about the food habits, cuisine, religious practices, skin colors, beliefs, and the marriage system of the then society in South India. He also observed the flora and fauna. When Marco was traveling through India, Rudramma Devi of the Kartikeya dynasty was the ruler. Marco Polo had nothing but praise about this queen in his famous book. He had specially mentioned her valour and military acumen to fortify the capital from the enemies by constructing a wall of great heights along with one more inner earthen defensive curtain which had a forty-three-meter wide moat and was two point four kilometers in diameter.

Many mistook Marco Polo for just another traveler in history, but few know about his life and adventures, his expeditions in South Asia, his diplomatic prowess, his language studies, and his not-so-big battle experience. His travels and book inspired many after him to explore and go on adventures in the undiscovered parts of the world. Marco Polo put the first significant stone in the connecting bridge between Europe and Asia.