Kublai quizzed them on European affairs and decided to send them on a goodwill mission to the pope. After spending three years in Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan, they were encouraged by a Mongolian embassy to visit Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, who controlled a huge swath of Asia. Niccolò and Maffeo therefore turned east in order to trade in such things as silk, gems, furs and spices. The Byzantine re-conquest of Constantinople in 1261, along with upheavals in the Mongol Empire, may have blocked their way home. Thinking he would reach Asia and having no idea about the Mongol Empire’s collapse, Columbus marked up the book with notes in preparation for a meeting with Kublai Khan’s descendent.
The two brothers then went to the port city of Soldaia (now Sudak, Ukraine), where they owned a house.ĭid you know? Christopher Columbus purportedly sailed to the New World with a copy of Marco Polo’s “Travels” in tow. Niccolò and Maffeo first spent about six years in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), which had been under Latin control since the Fourth Crusade of 1204. As a result, he was raised by extended relatives following his mother’s death at a young age. His father, Niccolò, and his uncle Maffeo had left the year before on a long-term trading expedition. Marco Polo was born around 1254 into a prosperous merchant family in the Italian city-state of Venice.
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