The Travels of Marco Polo (Pt. 1)

Whilst in prison at the end of the Thirteenth Century Italian writer Rustichello da Pisa began to hear extraordinary tales from his cell mate. That man turned out to be a Venetian merchant named Marco Polo. The tales that Polo then narrated to Rustichello eventually became the ‘Book of the Marvels of the World’. Usually known to us today as ‘The Travels of Marco Polo’.

This is Part One of the Preface entitled ‘How the Two Brothers Polo Set Forth from Constantinople to Traverse the World’ It concerns the travels of his father and his uncle and provides the necessary backdrop to the later journeys he embarked upon.

Music:-

Kevin MacLeod - Ascending the Vale

Battle Lines

This is an original work by the Thirteenth Century writer Rustichello da Pisa and Venetian trader and explorer Marco Polo. Written over seven hundred years ago to record Polo’s extraordinary travels for posterity it remains one of the most important chronicles of the Medieval World, especially in regards to European involvement in the rest of Eurasia.

The words of this video come directly from Rustichello and Polo themselves, translated in the Nineteenth Century by Sir Henry Yule and slightly revised by Henri Cordier .

You can read the full text here:-

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