Niccolo and Maffeo were away for many years. It was not unusual for merchants to trade in other countries and not come home for a long time. Travel was often very dangerous and some merchants never made the long journey back to their families.
We do not know a lot about Marco when he was a child. Who was his mother? Did he have any brothers or sisters? Nobody really knows. But we can imagine that he had a very comfortable early life. We know that he learned to read and write the Italian of his time and also use numbers. As the son of a rich merchant family he possibly went to church school or perhaps a teacher came to his house.
Marco’s family home was in the centre of Venice and this city was a very busy and exciting place to live. Perhaps Marco watched the huge ships come and go with their large boxes full of valuable goods. Or he talked to some of the sailors and listened to their stories about different places. Perhaps he sat near the water and waited for his father to return. But it was many years before Niccolo and Maffeo came home