of Beijing, and arrived at Shangtu in 1275.
Marco spent the next seventeen years serving Kublai
Khan on several diplomatic missions to the southern
regions of the khan’s vast empire, including Yünnan
province, Burma (as far as the Irrawaddy River), Cochin
China (Vietnam), and even parts of Tibet. Although
Marco was impressed by most of these places, his great-
est praise and most detailed descriptions are reserved
for Hangchou in Chechiang province, the largest and
most important city in China at this time. As scholars
have pointed out, it was probably Marco’s ability to
describe in detail the people, customs, and geography
of all these places (most of which the khan himself had
never seen) that enabled him to remain in the emperor’s
good graces for seventeen years. Marco, in fact, claims
that Kublai Khan rewarded him for his services by
making him “governor” of the city of Yangchou, 50
miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Nanking (Nanch-
ing). Scholars, however, fi nd it hard to believe that a
foreigner could have held such an important position:
it is more likely that Marco held a minor post, such as
that of inspector.
In 1292, the Polos found an opportunity to return
to Venice by joining an envoy escorting the princess
Cocacin to her groom, Arghun Khan of Persia, the
grandnephew of Kublai Khan. The envoy departed from
the port of Zaiton (Chuanchou or Chinchiang in Fuchien
province on the Formosa Strait) and sailed along the
coasts of China and Vietnam to Sumatra, Ceylon, and
the Malabar Coast of India before reaching Hormuz
almost two years later. In Hormuz, the Polos learned
of Arghun’s death and delivered Cocacin to Arghun’s
brother Kaikhatu. They spent the next nine months in
Tabriz before going to Trebizond (the Turkish town
of Trabzon on the Black Sea). From there they sailed
to Constantinople and Negroponte (a Venetian colony
on the Greek island of Euboea) before fi nally arriving
in Venice in 1295. Not long after his return to Venice,
Marco was taken prisoner by the Genoese while sailing
a galley (possibly in 1296). He remained in prison until
1299, during which time he dictated to Rustichello his
adventures in the far east.
The Polos’ two journeys to China were the farthest
any European had traveled to the Orient since the time of
Justinian. In 1246, Giovanni di Piano Carpini, who was a
Franciscan emissary of Pope Innocent IV and the author
of a history on the Mongols (Historia mongolorum),
went as far as Karakorum (the ancient Mongolian capi-
tal, about 250 miles—400 kilometers—west of Ulaan
Baatar). In 1253, William of Rubruck, also a Franciscan
friar, went to Karakorum as an envoy of King Louis IX
of France. Although both friars left written accounts of
their trips to Mongolia, neither account captured the
imagination of so many people for so many centuries
as Marco’s Il Milione.
Further ReadingEditions
Benedetto, Luigi Foscolo. Il libro di Messer Marco Polo cit-
tadino di Venezia detto Milione si raccontano le Meraviglie
del mondo. Milan and Rome: Trèves, Treccani, Tumminelli,
1932.
Marco Polo. Il libro di Marco Polo detto Milione nella versione
trecentesca dell’Ottimo, ed. Daniele Ponchiroli with an intro-
duction by Sergio Solmi. Turin: Einaudi, 1974.
——. Il Milione, ed. Luigi Foscolo Benedetto. Florence: Leo
Olschki, 1928.
——. Il Milione, ed. Ranieri Allulli. Classici Mondadori. Milan
and Verona: Mondadori, 1954.
——. Milione, ed. Lucia Battaglia Ricci. Firenze: Sansoni, 2001.
——. Milione: Le divisament dou monde; il Milione nelle re-
dazioni toscana e franco italiana, ed. Gabriella Ronchi, intro.
Cesare Segre. Milan: Mondadori, 1982.
——. Il Milione: Introduzione, edizione del testo toscano (“Ot-
timo”), ed. Ruggero M. Ruggieri. Biblioteca dell’Archivum
Romanicum, Series 1(200). Florence: Olschki, 1986.
——. Il “Milione” veneto: Ms. CM 211 della Biblioteca Civica
di Padova, ed. Alvaro Barbieri and Alvise Andreose. Venice:
Marsilio, 1999.
——. Milione: Versione toscana del trecento, ed. Valeria Ber-
tolucci Pizzorusso. Milan: Adelphi, 1975. (With index and
glossary by Giorgio R. Cardona.)
Marco Polo: Milione; Giovanni da Pian del Carpine: Viaggi a’
Tartari. Novara: Istituto Geografi co De Agostini, 1982. (In-
cludes an Italian translation of Historia mongolorum.)English Translations
Bellonci, Maria. The Travels of Marco Polo, trans. Teresa Waugh.
New York: Facts on File, 1984.
The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, Concerning the
Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, trans. and ed. Henry Yule.
New York: Scribner, 1929. (3rd ed., “revised throughout in
the light of recent discoveries,” but not based on Benedetto’s
critical edition.)
Marco Polo. The Description of the World, trans. A. C. Pelliot
and P. Pelliot. London: Routledge, 1938.
——. The Travels of Marco Polo, trans. Ronald Latham. Har-
mondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1958.Critical Studies
Barozzi, Pietro. Appunti per la lettura del Milione. Genoa: Fratelli
Bozzi, 1971.
Bellonci, Maria. Marco Polo. Milan: Rizzoli, 1989.
Benedetto, Luigi Foscolo. La tradizione manoscritta del Milione
di Marco Polo. Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1982.
Brunello, Franco. Marco Polo e le merci dell’Oriente. Vicenza:
Neri Pozza, 1986.
Capusso, Maria Grazia. La lingua del Divisament dou monde di
Marco Polo. Pisa: Pacini, 1980.
Hart, Henry Hersh. Marco Polo: Venetian Adventurer. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1967.
Komroff, Manuel. Contemporaries of Marco Polo: Consisting of
the Travel Records to the Eastern Parts of the World of William
of Rubruck. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1928.
Marco Polo, Venezia, e l’oriente, ed. Alvise Zorzi. Milan: Electa,
1982.
Olschki, Leonardo. L’Asia di Marco Polo: Introduzione alla let-
tura e allo studio del Milione. Florence: Civelli, 1957.
———. Marco Polo’s Asia: An Introduction to His “Descrip-
tion of the World” Called Il Milione, trans. John A Scott. Los
Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960.POLO, MARCO