50 Fun Facts About Marco Polo

Marco Polo was a merchant and explorer from which city?

Theories that he was born on Korčula or in Constantinople have not won acceptance.

Which Mongol ruler's court received the Polos in China?

He was the founder of the Yuan dynasty and, impressed by Marco's intelligence, made him a foreign emissary.

How many years did the Polos spend away from home on the journey that began in 1271?

They travelled almost 15,000 miles and came home in 1295 with their fortune converted into gemstones.

How old was Marco when his father Niccolò came home around 1269 and met him for the first time?

Niccolò had left his wife pregnant; she died while he was away and an aunt and uncle raised the boy.

What was the name of Marco Polo's uncle who travelled with him and his father?

Niccolò and Maffeo had already met the Great Khan on an earlier trip.

What did the nickname 'Milione' given to Marco Polo literally mean in Italian?

Ramusio said Venetians gave it to him because he kept saying the Khan's wealth was counted in millions; his father had the nickname too.

How old was Marco when he, his father and uncle set out for Asia in 1271?

They sailed to Acre and rode camels to the Persian port of Hormuz.

The archdeacon of Acre whom the Polos met early in their journey was soon elected to what office?

Tedaldo Visconti became Gregory X after a 33-month vacancy and gave the Polos letters for the Great Khan.

How many Christians learned in the Seven Arts had the Great Khan asked the Pope to send him?

He also asked for oil from the lamp in Jerusalem, which the Polos duly delivered.

How many Dominican friars did the new Pope send with the Polos as his legates?

Guglielmo of Tripoli and Nicola of Piacenza; the Khan had asked for a hundred learned Christians.

At which summer palace did the Polos finally reach the Great Khan?

Marco was about 21; the palace is the Xanadu of Coleridge's poem.

Why did the Polos travel overland rather than sail from Hormuz to China?

On the way a caravan they joined was ambushed by bandits under cover of a sandstorm.

For how many years did Marco Polo live in the Great Khan's lands?

He was sent on missions to what are now Myanmar, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

How many languages did Marco Polo know, according to his book?

He had learned little or no Latin at home, but plenty of appraising and cargo handling.

Which Mongol princess did the Polos escort to Persia on their way home around 1291?

She was meant for Arghun Khan, who died before she arrived, so she married his son Ghazan instead.

How many junks made up the fleet that carried the wedding party from Zaitun in 1292?

Of some 600 passengers, only eighteen survived the two-year voyage, including all three Polos.

How many of the roughly 600 passengers survived the sea voyage from China to Persia?

The route ran via Singapore and Sumatra, round the tip of India and across the Arabian Sea to Hormuz.

Which rival republic was at war with the Polos' home city when Marco returned in 1295, and captured him?

He had armed a galley with a trebuchet; he was probably taken off the Anatolian coast in 1296, not at Curzola.

To whom did Marco Polo dictate his travels while in prison?

A writer of romances, he lifted the book's opening address from an Arthurian tale he had written earlier.

In which language did Rustichello write down the original text of the book?

The oldest surviving manuscript is Old French heavily flavoured with Italian.

In what year was Marco Polo released from Genoese captivity?

He came home to a large palazzo his father and uncle had bought in the Corte del Milion.

Whom did Marco Polo marry in 1300?

They had three daughters; a 2022 discovery added an earlier daughter, Agnese, from a previous relationship.

What did Marco Polo tell Pietro d'Abano he had seen in the sky over the South China Sea?

Almost certainly the comet recorded in China and Indonesia in 1293; it is not in his book.

Whom did Marco Polo set free in his will, leaving him 100 lire?

The servant may have come with him from Asia; the will was validated by Marco touching it.

In which Venetian church did Marco Polo ask to be buried?

He died in January 1324, though the exact day is uncertain because Venetian days ended at sunset.

According to Jacopo d'Acqui, what did Marco Polo insist on his deathbed?

Contemporaries were sceptical of the book from the start; the Dominicans defended it.

Roughly how many early manuscript copies of Marco Polo's book survive?

They differ so much that no authoritative version can exist.

Which Dominican friar translated the book into Latin in 1302, helping it spread across Europe?

He called Marco 'a prudent, honoured and faithful man'.

When was the first English translation of Marco Polo's book published?

John Frampton's Elizabethan version was based on a Castilian translation of 1503.

The 1938 Moule and Pelliot translation used a Latin manuscript found in which cathedral's library?

It is 50% longer than other versions.

Which of these did Marco Polo's book give Europeans their first Western record of?

Porcelain and gunpowder were also first described by him, along with several Asian plants and animals.

Which famous structure did Marco Polo fail to mention, as 17th-century sceptics first noted?

The wall we know is Ming-built, two centuries after his visit, and the Mongols had no use for it.

Which historian's 1995 book Did Marco Polo Go to China? argued he never went beyond Persia?

Rachewiltz called the book 'deceptive' and 'unprofessional'; Haw's Marco Polo's China is seen as settling the matter.

Which everyday Chinese items are among those Marco Polo never mentions?

Nor does he mention Chinese characters or footbinding, though other travellers left them out too.

Which Chinese city did the book claim Marco Polo governed for three years?

No Chinese source mentions him; Pelliot thought he may have worked in the salt monopoly there.

For what offence was 'Boluo', a courtier some identify with Marco Polo, arrested in 1274?

Men and women had to keep to opposite sides of the road; the emperor himself had him released.

Which siege did the book falsely claim the Polos helped by advising on mangonels?

It ended in 1273, before Marco arrived; the real engineers came from Baghdad.

How many arches did Marco Polo say the bridge later named after him had?

It actually has eleven or thirteen; he also gave Khanbaliq twelve gates instead of eleven.

Hans Ulrich Vogel's 2012 study argued for Polo's presence in China from his accurate details on what?

He even recorded the use of cowry shells as money in Yunnan, confirmed by archaeology.

Which Chinese shipbuilding feature did Marco Polo note and want to share with his fellow Venetians?

He also observed the burning of coal, which Europeans found strange.

Which later explorer carried an annotated copy of Marco Polo's book among his belongings?

Polo's description of the Far East was part of what drove Columbus to seek it by sailing west.

Which 15th-century world map did Ramusio say drew partly on one the Polos brought back from Cathay?

His book also influenced the Catalan Atlas.

Where did the myth that Marco Polo brought pasta from China originate?

Durum wheat came to Sicily with the Arabs about four centuries before his travels.

Which animal, described by Polo when crossing the Pamir in 1271, is named after him?

The Marco Polo sheep is a subspecies of Ovis ammon, the argali.

What record did the clipper Marco Polo, built in Saint John, New Brunswick in 1851, set?

His home city's airport also carries his name.

Which Italian author made Marco Polo a pivotal character in the 1972 novel Invisible Cities?

Eugene O'Neill had already put him on stage in Marco Millions (1928).

Which video game ties its hunt for the Cintamani Stone to Marco Polo's 1292 voyage from China?

He also appears as a Great Explorer in Civilization Revolution.

Which streaming service made a 2014–16 drama series about Marco Polo's early years at the Mongol court?

A 1982 miniseries with Ken Marshall and Burt Lancaster won two Emmys.

Which future filmmaker played Marco Polo in a 1953 episode of the TV series You Are There?

Mark Eden played him in the lost 1964 Doctor Who serial Marco Polo.

Which Portuguese Jesuit walked 6,400 km across Central Asia and reached the Great Wall in 1605?

His journey proved that Cathay and China were the same place.