People often think of marco polo as the most famous traveler of his time . but it is important to remember that marco’s father and uncle travelled to the east before him. Without the earlier journey of niccolo and maffeo polo we cannot imagine the travels of marco and his book the description of the world.
Niccolo and maffeo left venice for Constantinople in 1253. They sailed from the city in large ships full of goods to trade. At this time, travel by sea was dangerous, dirty, and very uncomfortable, so the brothers were surely pleased to arrive at last in Constantinople
This great city was an important centre for merchants from around the world. The brother traded busily here for six years and bought a lot of jewels. But after some fighting between different groups in the city, the polos decided to leave and take their jewels with them.
The brothers first sailed to sudak in modern day Ukraine. They wanted to return to venice but travel from here was too dangerous. So they began to move east along the north route of the silk road. The roads were safer in this area because they were under the rule of the Mongols. On the journey the brothers bought and sold goods like salt, animal skins, gold, and spices
They travelled to serai in a place now called astrakhan. Thus was the summer home of the mongol ruler barka khan and his peple. When the polo first met barka khan,they gave him their jewels from Constantinople as a present. But the ruler then gave them twice the number of jewels in return!
The brother,whowere now rich, stayed in serai for a year and traded. They then trravelled to the famous sillk road city of Bukhara in modern day Uzbekistan. More fighting meant that they could not go further, or return home, so they worked there as merchants for three years.
By luck they met an ambassador in Bukhara who was going to visit the great mongol ruler of china, Kublai khan. The ambassador agreed to take the two men to china to meet the khan. In 1264 the polos arrived at Kublai khan’s palace in khanbaliq, or modern day Beijing. It was now eleven years since they first left venice.
Later in the description of the world marco talked aboutthis famous meeting between the polos and Kublai khan. We learn that the great ruler was very interested to hear about the rest of the world. He asked the brothers about the pope, the Christian church, and the different rulers in Europe.