Famous businessman, explorer and travel writer

Marco Polo was born in 1254. When he died in 1324, he was richer than any of his closest relatives. The story behind Marco the Traveler, as he was known during his lifetime, is a relative mystery. We know much about his travels in Asia from his sporadic literary work. The Voyages of Marco Polo, Or part of the worldAs it was originally titled. This is the first travelogue of the era. It offered a great stylistic and thematic change from other, more popular forms of medieval travel writing. But this is not enough to know the life and work of the real person behind the work.

Although much has been speculated about the adventurous life of our hero, Marco Polo was, in fact, a distant and uncertain character, so that his contemporaries regarded his various discoveries with the same sense of wonder and mystery that we now see. At the time, Europeans also met his findings with some skepticism, at least in terms of his literary work.

This work, however, became an important and valuable tool for those seeking to penetrate the Mongol Empire to the east. Descriptions of Marco’s discoveries and a few accounts became invaluable to traders, crusaders, and travelers. Marco Polo was certainly a fan. His talent, in fact, came from a rich family culture, a family of Venetian merchants. Marco applied the inquiring eye of the explorer and trader to everything he encountered, conveying his discoveries in a way that was hitherto unknown in the most popular European travel literature.

The start of a family venture

Marco Polo (or Marco the Traveler) was born into a family of merchants in Venice. At that time, the Republic had a lot of wealth in the Mediterranean world; It was one of the main commercial ports in Europe. Thus, the older generation of Polos (Marco’s traveling father and two uncles) had a wealth of experience to pass on to the younger generation. The Polo family has done business in existence Brother company It was originally composed of the three elder Polos. They carried on trade in the Black Sea or the eastern Mediterranean; At this point, all three older brothers may participate.

of Brother company Here is some explanation. It varied in composition over time, but incorporated members of both generations of the Polos. After Marco Sr. took on a non-traveling role in the family venture – settling in the Black Sea – Niccolò Sr. and Maffeo Sr. continued their partnership. After 1295 – Marco Sr. had probably already passed away – he left his estate to his son Niccolò Jr.

In 1310, a business union was created. Maffeo Sr. and brothers Maffeo Jr. and the traveler Marco have entered into an undisclosed special agreement. By this the three agreed to divide their business (we are not told specifically which) into three equal parts, the income and movable property between them. of Brother company The manor of San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice did not cover all the movable assets and immovable assets of the co-owned manor. After 1310, Marco Junior remained the sole legal heir of the partnership, giving him the inheritance of the joint wealth of many commercial activities of the previous years.

On this first trip, the Polos made a modest profit from trading goods they found in Asia, then returned to Venice—where there was a demand for luxury and exotic goods sold on the road. They returned to Venice in 1269. After completing this work, elders may find that their business has been very successful or that it has opened up a good opportunity for further missions. The Mongols planned a new venture into Asia. Maffeo Sr. and Niccolò Sr. left Venice and arrived at Soldaia – Marco Sr.’s estate on the Black Sea – in 1271, this time with the traveler Marco Junior..

The elder Polos may have met the Golden Horde before 1261. He decided to return to Constantinople and continue eastward to Central Asia. This was Polos’ first contact with the Mongol Empire.

In the same year, the three Polos left Acre with crystal objects to be delivered to Qubilai from the archbishop Gregory. This was arguably the beginning of close contact between Marco the Traveler and the mighty Mongols. Kagan Kublai of the Far East.

Marco Jr. probably spent 24 years traveling through Asia, and for a great part of it he was alone. The elder Polos, Maffeo Sr. and Niccolò Sr., returned to Venice without Marco Jr., but we cannot be sure of this. On their return from Asia, they probably lived in a villa at Soldaia in 1288, some sources suggest.

Meanwhile, Marco was commissioned from the court of Kublai Khan. These required strict reports on business and industrial activities. This is the main way in which the Marco Traveler knows the world around him so well and with such minute accuracy. He spent 17 years in Kagan’s service, traveling abroad to southern Indian ports.

When Marco returned to Venice, he took with him some valuable and easily transportable goods. While we cannot know exactly how long the journey took, we can estimate it to be around three years. We are told that in 1295 the three passed through the Greek territory of Trebizond in Asia Minor. He probably returned to Venice the same year.

By the time he arrived, Genoa was at war with Venice and Pisa. As a result, Polo was arrested and imprisoned in the Genoese prison. However, we cannot be certain of the manner in which they were captured, as the accounts of their capture differ from source to source. One of them tells us that in 1294 Marco was captured in a naval battle at Laiazo, the main port of Cilicia, Armenia, after which all but 100 of the Venetian prisoners were released from Genoa.

This version of events excludes Marco the Traveler himself, who narrates his return from Asia to Venice via Constantinople and the Negroponte, both of which are a long way from Laiazzo. It is very unlikely that he was captured in this military campaign, not only because of the geographical disparity, but also because he did not want to volunteer for military service after his long journey.

Another version is captured in the naval battle of Curzola in 1298, which seems to be a more plausible event than that of Laazzo. As Marco was 44 years old and he was also willing to take part in the war, it seems unlikely that he would have been captured by Curzola. It is most likely that he was arrested while on a business trip, because we know that he continued to be involved in business activities after returning to Venice. This means that he was arrested because he was a citizen of Venice. He may have been engaged in trade in the Mediterranean at the time of his capture.

Unfortunately, there are many different versions; Editions last for several centuries, and they correspond to certain standards in the time and region of their publication. For example, we know of one version recorded in the context of the Crusades in which he contemplates befriending and forming an alliance with the Mongols in the Near East. This complicates the crucial issue of knowing what the original manuscript intended. As mentioned above, we have word color.

Many of Polo’s life achievements are not reflected in his literary work. His reception Trips He was somewhat skeptical. Without hearing about the Far East, people of the time questioned the existence of civilized and sophisticated institutions as reported by Marco the Traveler. The Europeans of the time believed that Christian Europe was the most advanced and civilized part of the world and that it could not be anywhere else, Christianity had not yet arrived. on the other hand, Travelers Describing non-Christian peoples as aliens is hardly conceivable, but it may have been Rustilo’s hand in his project, as it was fashionable at the time – and this was the case in other literary works such as Sir John Mandeville. Trips.

The last years of Marco Polo‘Life in Venice

Marco Polo spent the last years of his life in comfort, enjoying a highly respected reputation in Venice. He eventually became the heir to all the accumulated wealth Brother company. But later he was involved in other businesses and several business ventures and as an investment partner. [replkaced by:] But in 1344, when Marco was sixty years old, he stopped traveling, according to some documentary evidence.

Marco died in Venice in 1354 at the age of 70. He had many trade items of unknown origin, among them deer mask, a highly prized product in Venice at the time that could only be found in China or Tibet. He also owned a number of artifacts that were not considered commercial goods; These are at the time a paiza Or pai-tzu. This was given to Kagan’s agents to conduct business under his name, thus confirming the close relationship between Marco the Traveler and Kublai. Numerous silks, Asian garments of uncertain origin, and valuable pottery. In short, he was a wealthy man, probably a member of the Venetian business culture elite.

Therefore, our understanding of who Marco Polo was remains uncertain. It is not only the lack of evidence that causes us to hesitate when we try to reach the right conclusion, but the complexity of this evidence makes us stumble in our search for truth. Moreover, we think we can only place the traveler Marko in the world’s important business records, family relationships and wider historical events. This is what allows us to trace the real individual behind the work of literature.