Much has been written about Marco Polo, and his travels to China have been the subject of much controversy. This begs the question: who exactly was Marco Polo?

Born in Venice in 1254, Polo lived in a great Italian trading city (Stanford, par. 1). His father was heavily involved in trade, and so Marco was immersed in this kind of business from the very beginning.

In 1271, Polo accompanied his father and uncle on the journey to China to meet Kubilai Khan. Marco Polo soon found his way into the favor of Kubilai Khan, and was appointed to go on many government trips throughout China, where he encountered many Chinese inventions (Stanford, pars. 5-6). Some of the inventions that Polo wrote about in his journals of the trip included the invention of paper, different mechanical devices, and a paper currency. He also wrote about jade, porcelain, silk and ivory, and coal (Han, par.5 ).

http://www.askasia.org/silk_roads/
l000098/l000098h.htm

Marco Polo stayed in China for seventeen years, when in 1297, he returned to Venice. He wrote of his journey and prolonged visit to China in The Travels of Marco Polo, or A Description of the World (Stanford, par. 7).

It is around this book that much of the controversy about Marco Polo is centered. His tales were so bizarre to the Europeans that many refused to believe they were true, and so Polo is recorded as saying "I do not tell half of what I saw because no one would have believed me" (Han, par. 7). Nevertheless, the controversy over Polo's real or imaginary encounters probably spurred a great interest in China and its inhabitants among the people of this time.

Works Cited:

Han, Lydia E. "Marco Polo Travels in China: 1275-1292". Retrieved 5 November 2001. http://www.campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/China/MarcoPolo.html.

Stanford University. "Marco Polo and His Travels". Retrieved 18 October 2001. http://www.askasia.org/silk_roads/1000098/1000098d.htm.