Who is Marco Polo?
Marco Polo was born on 15 September 1254 in Venice, Italy. Born in a family of traders, Marco Polo grew up hearing family stories of travel and adventures. His father, along with two brothers, moved about for years, living and trading everywhere from the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea to modern day Uzbekistan. This instilled in Marco Polo two of the biggest loves of his life: traveling and trading. It was Marco Polo’s father who first traveled the famous China’s Silk Road. A couple of years after the original trip, Marco Polo joined his father on a repeat trip to see Kublai Khan. What had been originally planned as a short visit turned into a 17-year residency in the Chinese Empire. Marco Polo became the Khan’s favorite, and accompanied him in official business throughout the kingdom. Marco Polo returned to Europe in 1291, where he immediately became involved in the family trading business. During this time, he also dictated many of his adventures to Rustichello da Pisa, a romance writer,
Timeblazers Jen (Heidi Leigh) and Sam (Mike Ackerman) drop in on Alex (Stephen Joffe) to take him back in time to learn about Marco Polo, the most famous trader of all time. At 17, in 1271, Marco, his father and uncle left Italy to travel along the Silk Road, which is what people called the route to China, to trade Turkish blankets for silk, which was more valuable than gold. The 5000-mile journey, which could take years, took the Venetian traders across all of Persia, into the Kushan Empire, to the mountains of western China, where they faced all kinds of dangers and illnesses. Marco’s father had befriended the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan on a previous visit, which helped them avoid trouble with bandits, who often stole many traders’ goods; also Marco learned four languages during his early travels, which impressed the emperor, who too befriended Marco, guaranteeing him safe travels through all of China, which he called Cathay. His book, The Travels of Marco Polo, opened the eyes of Eu
