Marco Polo

by Laurence Bergreen

  Few accounts of the naval actions off Curzola in 1298 fully agree on dates. For a variant, see W. Carew Hazlitt, The Venetian Republic, volume 1, pages 454–472. Conditions in a Genoese jail are described at length in Leondia Balestrieri’s “Le Prigioni della Malapaga.”

  CHAPTER ONE / The Merchants of Venice

  For a lucid exploration of the medieval ethos of Marco Polo’s era, see Janet Abu-Lughod’s eye-opening work, Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350, and Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century, especially pages 55–56. The best modern history of Venice is John Julius Norwich’s A History of Venice. Mrs. Oliphant’s The Makers of Venice: Doges, Conquerers, and Men of Letters also has its charms.

  The surprisingly sophisticated world of medieval Venetian and Italian contracts and commercial practices has been described in detail in Robert S. Lopez and Irving W. Raymond’s Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World; pages 14–15 and 168–178 are especially illuminating. See Benjamin Z. Kedar’s Merchants in Crisis: Genoese and Venetian Men of Affairs and the Fourteenth-century Depression for additional context. Lore about veneto comes from Jan Morris’s effervescent account, The World of Venice, page 31 in the 1993 Harcourt Brace edition.

  Some of what is known about Marco Polo’s early years can be found in Hart’s Marco Polo, which has more context than biography, but see especially pages xvii, 55–56, and 63–64.

  Rodolfo Gallo discusses the Ca’ Polo in “Nuovi documenti riguardanti Marco Polo e la sua famiglia,” note 3.

  In Venice: Lion City, pages 30 and following, Garry Wills analyzes the basis of power in the Republic. Michael Yamashita describes the ceremony of marriage to the sea in Marco Polo: A Photographer’s Journey, page 41. Alvise Zorzi’s Vita di Marco Polo veneziano is a useful introduction to Marco in a Venetian context.

  CHAPTER TWO / The Golden Passport

  In their consideration of foreigners who found employment in the Mongol regime, Yule and Cordier mention an oral tradition placing Jews in China since the first century. Accounts of synagogues and Jewish travelers crop up occasionally in Chinese annals as early as the twelfth century, although the terminology thought to refer to Jews may indicate another group. For more on the long but tentatively understood history of Jews in China, see Yule and Cordier, volume 1, page 347. (All citations to Yule and Cordier refer to their version of The Description of the World.)

  In his incisive The History of the Mongol Conquests, J. J. Saunders describes Mongol-Chinese segregation; see page 124. See also Hart, Marco Polo, page 16.

  Igor de Rachewiltz, in “Marco Polo Went to China,” page 66, suggests that by “Latin,” Marco (or his translator) actually meant “Italian,” and thus the Polo brothers were the first Venetians that Kublai had met. If so, Marco was not, in this instance, exaggerating. Hart’s Marco Polo, page 38, note, traces the Polo company’s uncertain progress, and includes Ludolph von Suchem’s description of Acre. See also Richard Humble’s illustrated Marco Polo for another retelling.

  CHAPTER THREE / The Apprentice

  Just what Marco meant by “muslin” is open to question. The term generally refers to white or unbleached cloth woven from cotton, but his was made of silver and gold, in which case he may have had another fabric in mind; or perhaps he meant that the muslin fabric was trimmed with silver and gold threads.

  Gibbon’s remark comes from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume 2, page 818. More about the caliph and Hülegü can be found in Zorzi’s Vita di Marco Polo. Yule and Cordier (volume 1, page 344, note 1) consider the Mongol taboo against spilling blood. For a diverting introduction to Mongol culture, see Ian Frazier’s “Invaders,” New Yorker, April 25, 2005. Kuo P’u’s remark appears in Irene M. Franck and David Brownstone, The Silk Road: A History, page 48. For extended analysis of the Dry Tree’s potential significance, see Yule and Cordier, volume 1, pages 128–139. The validity of Marco’s account of the Assassins has generated debate; some commentators believe that the hashish connection may be spurious, and that the Old Man did not drug his followers. For more, consult Leonardo Olschki, Marco Polo’s Asia, pages 369–370, and for recent observations on the Assassins, see Bernard Lewis, The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam, and Farhad Daftary, The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma’ilis.

  The description of Balkh by Nancy Hatch Dupree can be found in The Road to Balkh, page 1. Juvaini’s comments appear in the same work on page 75 and following. Hart, Marco Polo, page 97, adds background. See also Dupree’s An Historical Guide to Afghanistan, page 42, for the destruction of Balkh by the Mongol invaders.

  CHAPTER FOUR / The Opium Eater

  Manuel Komroff includes an account by Benjamin of Tudela in Contemporaries of Marco Polo, pages 268–269. John Larner’s Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World, pages 12–13, has additional context; William of Rubruck’s comments on what he took to be Mongol squalor are on page 25. Carpini’s account is quoted in Christopher Dawson’s The Mongol Mission, pages 6–7, and in Margaret T. Hodgen’s valuable Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, pages 90–92.

  James D. Ryan’s “Preaching Christianity Along the Silk Route: Missionary Outposts in the Tartar ‘Middle Kingdom’ in the Fourteenth Century” contains a trove of useful data concerning the issues confronting early missionaries to Asia.

  The story of Genghis Khan’s horse is told by Mike Edwards in “Genghis: Lord of the Mongols,” National Geographic, December 1996. Juvaini’s observation about perdition is drawn from Morris Rossabi’s Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times, page 2.

  For an interesting if technical discussion of the origins and evolution of the Silk Road, see Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China, volume 1, pages 181–204. This is but a brief sample of an extraordinary, multivolume survey of Chinese knowledge compiled by a scholar of China of exceptional gifts and vision.

  Dr. Sarah Schlesinger of Rockefeller University generously outlined the prevalence of tuberculosis in Marco’s time, and the ramifications of the illness as he may have experienced it in Afghanistan.

  CHAPTER FIVE / High Plains Drifters

  Concerning asbestos, see Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China, volume 3, page 660. As Needham demonstrates, the Chinese were aware of asbestos for centuries, calling the material, not inaccurately, “stone veins.”

  Of the Pamir, Dr. James B. Garvin, NASA’s chief scientist, and a geologist by training, notes, “Because of the arid environment, lack of human degradation of the landscape, [and] spectacular exposures of the effects of recent earthquakes and of the uplift of the mountain, this area is a premier natural laboratory for the investigation of…significant [geological] problems.”

  CHAPTER SIX / The Secret History of the Mongols

  Carpini’s account of life among the Mongols is drawn from Christopher Dawson’s The Mongol Mission, page 37. Vassaf’s observation can be found in the History of Vassaf, volume 1. The work dates from 1302. Shoaib Harris translated.

  The various English translations of The Secret History of the Mongols differ dramatically from one another. Those wishing to learn more about this remarkable document would do well to compare them all. Among the more significant are the translation by Francis Woodman Cleaves; a verse adaptation by Paul Kahn; and the extraordinarily detailed rendering by Igor de Rachewiltz. I have relied on the English-language version by Urgunge Onon, published in Mongolia in 2005, which appears faithful to the letter and spirit of the original saga. My thanks to Nomin Lkhagvasuren for bringing it to my attention. The stanza quoted can be found on page 110.

  Nicholas Wade in The New York Times quoted Juvaini on Genghis Khan; see “A Prolific Genghis Khan, It Seems, Helped People the World,” February 11, 2003. Chris Tyler-Smith’s “The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols” sheds light on Genghis Khan’s many descendants.

  The evocative description of the Mongol conception of the soul comes from A. C. Moule and Paul Pelliot’s edition of Marco Polo, The Descr
iption of the World, volume 1 (reprinted 1976), pages 257–258. The quotations from David Morgan and from Juvaini are drawn from Morgan’s The Mongols, page 55. For a detailed analysis of the Chinese and Mongol military systems, see Chi’-Ch’ing Hsiao, The Military Establishment of the Yüan Dynasty.

  The Mongol recipes offered here can be found (along with other dishes) in Paul Buell’s “Pleasing the Palate of the Qan.” But there is more to say about the Mongol diet and its effect on Mongol dynastic history. In “Dietary Decadence and Dynastic Decline in the Mongol Empire,” John Masson Smith Jr. offers a drastically different assessment of the healthiness of the Mongol diet. “Most Mongol rulers lived short lives,” he states. “Those in the Middle East died, on average, at about age 38, and the successors of Qubilai raised the ages, since he lived, atypically, for 78 years [sic]; Chinggis lived into his 60s; for the rest, few passed 50.” Smith blames the Mongols’ lack of longevity on “dietary inadequacies and improprieties,” by which he means too much mutton, mare’s milk, and alcohol, and not enough of other foods. He cites Marco Polo’s statistics as evidence, in part, of the Mongols’ tendency toward excess. They were, in short, eating and drinking themselves to death.

  CHAPTER SEVEN / The Universal Emperor

  Bar Hebraeus’s praise of Sorghaghtani can be found in The Cambridge History of China, volume 6, page 414. My thanks to Professor S. Tsolmon of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences for outlining the four major population segments.

  Morris Rossabi’s Khubilai Khan offers the best modern assessment of Kublai’s ascent to power. I have drawn especially from page 8 and from pages 46 and following. Arigh Böke’s machinations are recounted in M. G. Pauthier’s notes for Le Livre de Marco Polo, beginning on page 237.

  For a technical comparison of Chinese and Mongol currency, see Yule and Cordier, volume 1, pages 426–430. In Marco Polo’s Asia, pages 234–240, Olschki dissects the tensions animating relationships among Mongols and Muslims and considers reasons why Islam did not gain a firm grip on the Mongol Empire.

  In Khubilai Khan, pages 40–41 and 155–160, Rossabi ably tells the story of ’Phags-pa and his script. See also Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, pages 205–206. And Zhijiu Yang’s Yuan shi san lun has an interesting discussion of the languages Marco Polo may have known or used, with reference to M. G. Pauthier’s thoughts on the subject. Marco Polo’s Asia, by Olschki, also discusses ’Phags-pa script and contains interesting assessments, pro and con, of the Mongol impact on Chinese culture (pages 124–128). Some early accounts ascribe five or seven wives to Kublai Khan rather than four; see Yule and Cordier, volume 1, page 358, note 2. For an explanation of Mongol succession issues, see the same work, pages 360–361, note 1.

  CHAPTER EIGHT / In the Service of the Khan

  Marco Polo’s accuracy in describing Cambulac can be gauged by the fact that the historian Rashid al-Din, his learned contemporary, described the city in very similar terms:

  The surrounding wall of the city of Khanbaligh is flanked by 17 towers; between each [two] of these towers there is the distance of a farsang (or parasange). Daidou [Ta-tu, or Cambulac] is so populous that even outside of these towers there are great streets and houses; in its gardens there are many kinds of fruit trees brought from everywhere. At the center of this city, Khoubilai-Khaan has established one of his Ordou (a Mongolian term which like the Chinese Koung means “imperial dwelling”), in a very large palace called Karsi (in Chinese, tien, a cluster of pavilions destined for the emperor’s various uses).

  The columns and the floors of this palace are all in cut stone or marble, and of great beauty; it is surrounded and fortified by four walls. Between one of these walls and the next there is a space equal to the distance covered by an arrow flung with force. The external court is for the palace guards; the next one is for the princes (omera, emirs) who assemble there each morning; the third court is occupied by the great dignitaries of the army, and the fourth by those who are in the prince’s intimate circle. The picture of this palace is based on one made on site.

  At Khanbaligh and at Daidou there are two large and important rivers. They come from the north, where lies the road leading to the Khan’s summer encampment; at the frontier gorge of Djemdjal (the fortified gorge of Kiu-young) they join another river. Inside the town is a considerable lake which resembles a sea; there is a dam to bring the boats down. The water of the river further along forms a canal, and issues out into the bay which, from the ocean, extends into the vicinity of Khanbaligh. [From Pauthier’s edition of Marco Polo’s Travels, Le Livre de Marco Polo, page 266, note 5.]

  For more on the complex subject of the Chinese calendar, see Yule and Cordier, volume 1, pages 388–389; Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China, volume 3, pages 390 and following; and Robert Temple’s The Genius of China, pages 36–38. Temple’s illustrated book can be considered a simplified introduction to Needham’s occasionally unwieldy magnum opus.

  J. D. Langlois’s notable China Under Mongol Rule, page 3 and following, has more on the conceptual and historical roots of the Yüan dynasty, and the emperor’s role as personified by Kublai Khan.

  The details of Kublai Khan’s astonishing wardrobe are drawn from Pauthier’s Le Livre de Marco Polo, page 285, note 4, and the General Ceremonial from the same work, page 290, note 4. The birthday rites were extremely intricate. Pauthier offers a record of an exhausting birthday worship service:

  The “first introducer” says in a cadenced voice: “Bow down!”—“Rise!” He goes toward the vermilion vestibule (that of the emperor), and makes his obeisances before the chair, or imperial throne. The “first orderer” announces that all is in order and well executed. Then “the usher in chief” cries in a loud and cadenced voice: “Bow profoundly!” The “perambulating ushers” cry: “Bow!”—“Bow profoundly!”—“Rise!”—“Bow profoundly again!”—“Rise!” When all this has been successively and punctually executed as a preliminary, the “chief of the ushers” then announces: “The emperor in person, who is accompanied by ten thousand felicities, is coming!” The “perambulating ushers” cry: “Resume your places!”—“Bow profoundly!”—“Rise!”—“Bow profoundly again!”—“Rise!”—“Bow!”—“Replace your ivory tablets in your belts!”—“Bow!”—“Tap the ground three times with your foot!”—“Bend your left knee!”—“Prostrate the head against the ground three times!”

  Pauthier notes, “It is the famous form of salutation in the presence of the emperor, prescribed by Chinese ritual, consisting in three prostrations, with bended knees and head placed on the ground, to which many European ambassadors refused to submit….” This was merely the introductory ceremony, which was followed by prolonged prayers to propitiate the heavens, also intricately choreographed, followed by more bowing, and concluded with processions. Only then did the formal birthday rites end.

  Hart’s Marco Polo discusses coal in China on page 121.

  On the extent of Mongol charity, Pauthier observes on page 346: “One may see there that Marco Polo was far from exaggerating the acts of benevolence of this kind attributed by him to Kublai Khan. Thus in 1260, the food supply having fallen short, money was gathered for distribution to a certain number of the needy. In 1261, the government remitted the overdue duties or taxes to the inhabitants of the three sectors of the capital…. During the whole reign of Kublai Khan, there is not one year in which the Annals do not report remission of duties, of taxes, of charges, for one reason or another, to the inhabitants of the capital, of the imperial summer residence and to various provinces or departments of the Empire; and distributions of aid in times of famine or public calamities.” He concludes, “We believe we can assert that the history of no sovereign and no dynasty in Europe could present a similar number of acts of generosity and benevolence.”

  CHAPTER NINE / The Struggle for Survival

  For more on the Mongol paiza, see Yule and Cordier, volume 1, pages 352–353.

  Marco Polo’s account of the bri
dge has come under fire for its supposed inaccuracies. In some manuscripts he claims that the bridge had twenty-four arches, when other records maintain that it had thirteen, or eleven. Again, the discrepancy may be caused by descriptions of the bridge as it appeared at different times. For more on the history of this legendary bridge, see Yule and Cordier, volume 2, pages 4–8, note 1.

  Dr. Sarah Schlesinger of Rockefeller University provided trenchant observations on the manufacture and molecular structure of silk.

  Concerning the practice of making salt, Yule and Cordier (volume 2, pages 57–58, note 5) report that even in their day—that is, 1913—salt was being used for purchases in these markets.

  The Penguin edition of the Travels includes remarks on the discrepancies concerning the date of Kublai’s military offensive against the Song (page 187, note). Descriptions of Mongol armor and arrows are based on artifacts in the collection of the Mongolian Museum of Natural History in Ulaanbaatar.

  CHAPTER TEN / The General and the Queen

  The psychological dynamics of childbearing are discussed in “Why Do Some Expectant Fathers Experience Pregnancy Symptoms?” Scientific American, October 2004, page 116.

  For more on Bayan’s career, see Yule and Cordier, volume 2, pages 148–150. Details of Bayan’s life have been drawn from In the Service of the Khan: Eminent Personalities of the Early Mongol–Yüan Period (1200–1300), edited by Igor de Rachewiltz et al., pages 584–606.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN / The City of Heaven

  The chapter on Quinsai is the longest in Marco’s account, and this signifies its importance. Nevertheless, intriguing uncertainties remain. In his book Quinsai; with Other Notes on Marco Polo, A. C. Moule notes that the term “City of Heaven,” employed by Marco, does not appear in Chinese annals. Where Marco came by this term, or whether the residents of Quinsai used it, is open to question. Moule (page 11) attributes the precision with which Marco described Quinsai to “an official account which was sent to the Mongol general Baian [Bayan] when he approached the city.” As a result, “the number and accuracy of the topographical and other details mentioned or implied exceeds those in the description of any other place in the book.” Chief among the unanswered questions is Marco’s exact role in Quinsai. For more on this issue, see the rigorous Olschki, Marco Polo’s Asia, pages 174–175. It is possible that the notion that Marco was appointed governor of Quinsai by no less than Kublai Khan originated with Giambattista Ramusio long after the fact.