Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm at a church Gibson, joined by staff writer J
Speaker 1: mccrat hey, kids, Marco, Hello, Marcallo. I actually know where
Speaker 1: Jane is. And we're not in a pool. We're talking
Speaker 1: about Marcus. We're talking about Marco follow because he is
Speaker 1: our topic today and he's not only the namesake of
Speaker 1: that very famous pool game, but he's also an established
Speaker 1: author and traveler and some even say political advisor. Supposedly
Speaker 1: that's right. And he was sort of like the original
Speaker 1: Indian in Jones. He he lived back when, um, basically
Speaker 1: Europe didn't know a whole lot about the world around
Speaker 1: it and for point of references about the thirteenth and
Speaker 1: fourteen centuries. And he grew up in Italy, in Venice specifically,
Speaker 1: and his father Nicola, and his uncle Mafeo or Mafia,
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure how it's pronounced in a f
Speaker 1: f e o um. They were travelers and traders. They
Speaker 1: were very very shrewd businessmen, and they anticipated that there
Speaker 1: is this changing political climate Constantinople that might enable them
Speaker 1: to get in on the gem trade and so they
Speaker 1: hopped on board, and they were able to make a
Speaker 1: pretty good amount of money traveling back and forth along
Speaker 1: the Silk Road, which was a series of trade routes
Speaker 1: that connected merchants from Central Asia to Europe. That's right.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, because his father was such a traveler, his
Speaker 1: father and his uncle uh, they were gone for much
Speaker 1: of Marco Poe's life until he was about a teenager.
Speaker 1: And uh. But when his father and uncle did come back, Uh,
Speaker 1: they discovered that his mother was dead. Um. And but
Speaker 1: they decided to have Marco continue the family business and
Speaker 1: uh in sorts so um. He actually ended up joining
Speaker 1: his father and uncle on their next back to China,
Speaker 1: and the trip took them in total about twenty four
Speaker 1: twenty five years. Historians debate that point, but seventeen of
Speaker 1: those years were spent in the court of Kubla Khan.
Speaker 1: And that was primarily the reason that they went back
Speaker 1: to China, was because Kubla Khan had asked them to
Speaker 1: bring back Christian missionaries and holy oil that have been
Speaker 1: blessed by the pope, and of course the polos obliged.
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you say you had to Kublican
Speaker 1: That's right, although they weren't totally successful in bringing back
Speaker 1: the religious men who were supposed to come back and
Speaker 1: explain and defend Christianity to kahan Um. And when they
Speaker 1: tried the the Pope actually assigned to Friars to come
Speaker 1: with the polos Um and Uh, pretty soon after the
Speaker 1: Polo set out, the Friars were like, forget it, I'm
Speaker 1: heading back. This is too much for us. Well, it's
Speaker 1: pretty intimidating because if you think about who Kuba Kan was,
Speaker 1: you're at the Mongol leader and you remember probably another
Speaker 1: famous Khan I've talked about before, Genghis Khan. And these
Speaker 1: are people who essentially took over this part of China
Speaker 1: and established theirn and fire and they were um formerly nomads,
Speaker 1: and then they realized that if they wanted to have
Speaker 1: a successful empire, they were going to have to be
Speaker 1: rooted and stay in place and established themselves as merchants
Speaker 1: and traders and craftsmen, and so that's exactly what they did.
Speaker 1: So they had this very wealthy establishment. But Kubla Khan
Speaker 1: was interested in learning more about Christianity and also just
Speaker 1: business skills from outsiders. That's true, and it was pretty
Speaker 1: fortunate considering what you're saying about how important they were
Speaker 1: in their area, that they showed favor to the Polos.
Speaker 1: They were, you know, they saw them as like, oh, special,
Speaker 1: special Europeans are coming and we're going to favor you,
Speaker 1: and you need to tell us about your culture and
Speaker 1: and um have us learn about everything. And they really
Speaker 1: like Margaret Polo, especially because he was young, and he
Speaker 1: was bright, and he was witty, and apparently he was
Speaker 1: really good at picking up languages, and he just really
Speaker 1: appealed to Kubla Khan. And again this is debatable, but
Speaker 1: he was either made a political advisor or some sort
Speaker 1: of career low level government official buy Cublican, and he
Speaker 1: was given a golden passport, which meant that he could
Speaker 1: travel to the ends of China and back, that's right.
Speaker 1: And because of that, he was able to see all
Speaker 1: these things that no European had seen before and just
Speaker 1: go to the ends of their of the of the
Speaker 1: empire there and uh, that's why he was able to
Speaker 1: write about so many amazing things later on. So he spent,
Speaker 1: like we said, about seventeen years in Kubla Khan's court,
Speaker 1: and we know that as he and his uncle and
Speaker 1: father traveled from Venice back to China. They covered about
Speaker 1: twenty four thousand miles and they would have passed through
Speaker 1: the Middle East and Central Asia and then through China,
Speaker 1: and supposedly there were a lot of new goods that
Speaker 1: they discovered or that they saw for the first time
Speaker 1: along the way. That's right, And legend is didn't he
Speaker 1: take back pasta for the first time to introduce it
Speaker 1: to Italy? And a lot of people todays think that, oh,
Speaker 1: you know that originated in Italy. You know, they associate
Speaker 1: spaghetti with with Italy. But um, but it was actually
Speaker 1: more Marco Polo who introduced it from China. Isn't that wild?
Speaker 1: So in addition to pasta, he saw porcelain and silk
Speaker 1: and coal and his very first compass, and also paper money.
Speaker 1: And paper money turned out to be a real biggie
Speaker 1: because later on in his memoirs from people were debating
Speaker 1: whether he had actually seen all of the things that
Speaker 1: he said. Um, they were asking, well, you know, you
Speaker 1: were in China, where are the mentions of the Great
Speaker 1: Wall or of foot binding that practice, because he loved
Speaker 1: those things out. Yeah, but he did mention paper money,
Speaker 1: and later on Europeans did see paper money, and they realized,
Speaker 1: oh well, then Marcot told us that this was coming,
Speaker 1: and he was right. That's right. And even despite acquiring
Speaker 1: malaria or some other serious illness along the way, he
Speaker 1: was a hearty little trooper and once he got to
Speaker 1: Kublican's court he was not restless per se. But he
Speaker 1: wasn't just a sedentary European who came over to soak
Speaker 1: in the culture. He was very active and communicating with
Speaker 1: the people and traveling the land and trying to not
Speaker 1: only discover what all was available out there, but also
Speaker 1: to keep the trade, the Polos trade alive, that business.
Speaker 1: That's true, and they were pretty successful. They were able
Speaker 1: to get a lot of riches on the way. And
Speaker 1: like you said earlier, like he picked up on languages
Speaker 1: so well. Um, I read that the Khan actually sent
Speaker 1: him on like fact finding missions when he went off
Speaker 1: to the to the ends of the empire. And it
Speaker 1: must have been a cool life, just like, hey, find
Speaker 1: out this for me and this crazy fact and he
Speaker 1: goes and he does it. I thought, pretty nice. I
Speaker 1: kind of like a position of that today. Um. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, after a while there was some unrest
Speaker 1: that started brewing between the Mongols and the Chinese and
Speaker 1: the Polos wanted too late because they saw that things
Speaker 1: were about to get nasty. And not only that, but
Speaker 1: Kublai Khan was getting kind of old, and once he died,
Speaker 1: the Polos, you know, they had been shown favor with
Speaker 1: with the Kublai Khan, but once he left, you know,
Speaker 1: they would not be secured of any favor from the
Speaker 1: next empire, definitely not. So they wanted to go ahead
Speaker 1: and get out of town. But Copa consent, no, and
Speaker 1: he was really insistent that they were going to stay.
Speaker 1: And you know, what were they to do? They were outnumbered.
Speaker 1: It was three against all the Mongols. But luckily fortune
Speaker 1: smiled on them because a Persian diplomat came over and
Speaker 1: said that Cohn's great nephew wanted a princess from the
Speaker 1: Mongol tribe to marry, and so con agree to let
Speaker 1: the Polos escort her back to Persia. So this was
Speaker 1: their ticket back to Italy afterwards. Yes, and once they
Speaker 1: get out of China, they went ahead and went on
Speaker 1: him to Venice afterward. Yeah. I read one place. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if this is true, but actually, as soon
Speaker 1: as they set foot on like Christian soil. Again, they
Speaker 1: actually got robbed. The Polos got robbed of the riches
Speaker 1: that they had spent you know, twenty years acquiring in China.
Speaker 1: And that must have been terribly disappointing, I'm sure sure,
Speaker 1: because they were representative of that culture and um, bringing
Speaker 1: ideals to the Mongols. But at least he carried with
Speaker 1: him what he saw there you go. And here's where
Speaker 1: the story gets kind of fishy. And we've been saying,
Speaker 1: you know, words like supposedly and debatably, and the reason
Speaker 1: for that is because there are a lot of scholars
Speaker 1: and historians, both contemporary to Marco Polo and today who
Speaker 1: debate the authenticity of his accounts. And we should mention
Speaker 1: that his accounts were titled The Description of the World,
Speaker 1: or ultimately titled The Travels of Marco Polo. And these
Speaker 1: were not slight books or a slight book whether it
Speaker 1: was a pretty hefty ton and Marco Polo didn't write
Speaker 1: it himself, that's right. He was actually imprisoned when he
Speaker 1: got back to Italy, which um it happened because he
Speaker 1: got involved in the battle between the Venetians and the Genoese.
Speaker 1: And at this time, you know, before Italy was unified
Speaker 1: or and everything like that. Uh, these were actually two
Speaker 1: republics and they were rivals at the time. So he
Speaker 1: was imprisoned by the Genoese. And while he was in prison,
Speaker 1: he actually met up with a popular writer of the time.
Speaker 1: He wrote romances and um, so he would dictate, would
Speaker 1: dictate his what he saw in China's travels, and the
Speaker 1: writer actually wrote down for him. And the writer's name
Speaker 1: was rest Cello, and he was a member of I
Speaker 1: think the French Court, and so he would have been
Speaker 1: writing to entertain nobles, and so some people think that
Speaker 1: he embellished market Pello stories and um. They were translated
Speaker 1: first into French and then into I think a hundred
Speaker 1: fifty different languages, or disseminated disseminated to a hundred fifty
Speaker 1: different countries. And so you can imagine it's almost like
Speaker 1: that game of telephone that you play when you're a child.
Speaker 1: A lot of secret from one year to the next.
Speaker 1: By the time you get back to the person who
Speaker 1: originated the secret, it's been altered in somewhat and there's
Speaker 1: no original manuscript for which to grouper back to. And
Speaker 1: this is and this is even assuming that rosta Cello.
Speaker 1: Actually Um wrote down faithfully everything that Polo said. It's
Speaker 1: possible because he was such a you know, he was
Speaker 1: a writer of romances, that he might have embellished things
Speaker 1: that Polo said precisely. And so by the time I
Speaker 1: got through with several um different letters and translators, the
Speaker 1: story was not in its original form by any stretch.
Speaker 1: But then market Polo later on his deathbed, he was
Speaker 1: asked to retract the things that he had said, and
Speaker 1: he commented, I only tell half of what I thought, right.
Speaker 1: He stuck to his story, he did. And not only that,
Speaker 1: he said, you know, if I had told you really
Speaker 1: what I had seen, you guys wouldn't have believed me
Speaker 1: anymore than you believe what I did tell you. And
Speaker 1: that's true because you think about the fact that China
Speaker 1: was such a mystery to the Europeans, not only with
Speaker 1: that far away, but they were isolated by a treacherous
Speaker 1: terrain and mountains and oceans, and they had no idea
Speaker 1: what was going on over there except for the goods
Speaker 1: that they saw come down. This it's true, and it
Speaker 1: should you know, like Um sort of to defend Polo,
Speaker 1: but also to explain maybe some inaccuracies in his story
Speaker 1: was that he didn't talk about everything he saw, Like
Speaker 1: everything he wrote in the book wasn't weren't things that
Speaker 1: he personally saw, but he got secondhand descriptions of from
Speaker 1: people he met there um and so if those were wrong,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have known. But he told his his side
Speaker 1: of the story. Would he knew right? And whether or
Speaker 1: not it is true all of the accounts, it forever
Speaker 1: changed how Europe regarded China. It gave rise to the
Speaker 1: first maps that you're made of of parts of Asia
Speaker 1: and of China, and even influence later explorers like Christopher
Speaker 1: Columbus who was trying to find the Orient based on
Speaker 1: the descriptions and coordinates that marcat Polo gave, and in
Speaker 1: fourteen two, I think we all know where he ended up.
Speaker 1: That's right now, the Orient. So and one of my
Speaker 1: favorite parts of the marcat Polo story is a little
Speaker 1: bit um juicy and tawdrey and pulpy, really, because we
Speaker 1: know from most accounts that he married a Venetian woman
Speaker 1: named Donata and he had three daughters, but there are
Speaker 1: some accounts or some legends rather that say he didn't
Speaker 1: marry an Italian woman. He married a woman that he
Speaker 1: met in Kubla Khan's court, actually his daughter how Dong,
Speaker 1: and supposedly how Dong traveled with him and his uncle
Speaker 1: and father and then returned with Marcot to Venice, and
Speaker 1: she was ostracized by the people because she was so different,
Speaker 1: so she would lock herself in her room and singing,
Speaker 1: which was her only comfort. She had a beautiful singing voice.
Speaker 1: And then we know that Marco came to be arrested,
Speaker 1: and in this version of the story, he wasn't arrested
Speaker 1: for leading uprising against the Genoese. He was arrested because
Speaker 1: he'd married a Christian and the Catholic Church of an eyeballing.
Speaker 1: It gets even more even more scandalous because then supposedly
Speaker 1: his sister Lucia lied to how Dong and said that
Speaker 1: he had died, and she was so upset that she
Speaker 1: set her clothes on fire and hurled herself into the canals.
Speaker 1: So if you're in Venice today, um, you can hear her.
Speaker 1: This is a story there, it's a good story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can hear her singing by the canal. Yeah, exactly that.
Speaker 1: I'm actually on my way right now. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to cut this short. The point being, you know,
Speaker 1: we we don't know definitively whether or not mercant Polo's
Speaker 1: accounts were true, and we don't know definitively all the
Speaker 1: details of his biography. So we've done a quick history
Speaker 1: of Marco Polo, and it only takes a click of
Speaker 1: amounts to uh go to our website and learn about
Speaker 1: anything from Marco Polo, history of China, or anything under
Speaker 1: this one, even Genghis Khan, the man who started all
Speaker 1: before before Kubla t That's on how stuff works dot com.
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