Q 01/05

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

A) Dante Alighieri

B) Rustichello da Pisa

C) Giovanni Boccaccio

D) Niccolò Polo

Answer · why

B) Rustichello da Pisa

Venice was at war with Genoa; his cellmate was a romance writer who turned the tales into Il Milione.

Q 02/05

Roughly how far did Ibn Battuta travel, more than any pre-modern explorer?

A) 50,000 km

B) 75,000 km

C) 100,000 km

D) 117,000 km

Answer · why

D) 117,000 km

That beats Zheng He's 50,000 km and Marco Polo's 24,000 km; he dictated his memoir, the Rihla, near the end of his life.

Q 03/05

Ibn Battuta came from which present-day country?

A) Egypt

B) Tunisia

C) Morocco

D) Syria

Answer · why

C) Morocco

He left Tangier in 1325 for the Hajj and did not return home for 24 years.

Q 04/05

How many treasure voyages did Zheng He command between 1405 and 1433?

A) Three

B) Seven

C) Five

D) Twelve

Answer · why

B) Seven

The Muslim eunuch admiral brought back a giraffe from Malindi that the court took for a mythical qilin.

Q 05/05

Which Chinese monk's journey to India inspired the novel Journey to the West?

A) Faxian

B) Yijing

C) Xuanzang

D) Bodhidharma

Answer · why

C) Xuanzang

Wu Cheng'en wrote the Ming novel about nine centuries after the monk's death.