Marco Polo quickly became trusted by Kublai Khan and became his emissary to India and Burma. He travelled extensively in South-East Asia and, upon his return to Italy, shared his stories with a writer who turned them into the book The Travels of Marco Polo . At the time, they were both imprisoned by enemies of Venice, whom Marco fought against.
SOURCE4 Polo’s work for the khan would take him around Asia and Europe and through many of the lands conquered by the Mongols.
Bulgar
EUROPE
Karakorum
Sarai
Venice
Genoa
TARTARY
Gobi Desert
BLACK SEA
Cambuluc (Beijing) Shangdu
Constantinople
Shazhou
Trebizond Erzurum
Suzhou
Kashgar
Bukhara
Yarkand
Ningxia
Tabriz
Cherchen
Ayas
YELLOW SEA
Lanzhou
Khotan
YUAN CHINA
Jerusalem Acre
Hangzhou Yangzhou
A
PERSIA
A
Hormuz
Quanzhou
ARABIA
Yunnan
Tagaung
INDIA
PACI F IC
BAY OF
AFRICA
OCEAN
SOUTH
BENGAL
ARABIAN SEA
CHINA
Nicobar Islands
SEA
Key
Malay Peninsula
Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
City
Karakorum
Travels 1271−75
Sumatra
INDIAN OCEAN
Travels 1275−92
0
1000
2000 3000
Travels 1292−95
kilometres
Source: Map drawn by Spatial Vision.
SOURCE5 In The Travels of Marco Polo , experiences are often ‘larger than life’, leading to claims by many people that the book was more fiction than fact. Some people have even claimed that Marco Polo never made it to China. ... I will tell you another very wonderful thing; for there are men in this kingdom who have tails like dogs, larger than a palm, and who are covered with hair. They remain in the mountains, never visiting the towns. There are unicorns, with various beasts and birds for hunting.
SkillBuilder discussion Using historical sources 1. Identify the element in the description from The Travels of Marco Polo that makes it seem more like a fictional tale rather than a factual account. 2. Marco Polo’s contemporaries had doubt about his travel stories. What aspects of his accounts would have contributed to such disbelief? Howmuchof The Travels of Marco Polo is true was questioned by people in the fourteenth century but, even on his deathbed at the age of 70, the intrepid explorer insisted that The Travels was a true account of his experiences. When asked by a priest to retract his ‘fables’, Marco Polo said, ‘I have not told half of what I saw’.
Jacaranda Humanities Alive 8 Victorian Curriculum Third Edition
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