The Granger Collection, New Yorkįrom Acre the travelers proceeded to Ayas (“Laiazzo” in Marco’s writings, now Yumurtalik, on the Gulf of İskenderun, also called the Gulf of Alexandretta, in southeastern Turkey). Returning to Acre, they were given proper credentials, and two friars were assigned to accompany them, though they abandoned the Polos shortly after the expedition resumed. The Polos had been on the road for only a few days when they heard that their friend Teobaldo had been elected pope as Gregory X. In Acre (now in Israel) the papal legate, Teobaldo of Piacenza, gave them letters for the Mongol emperor. Niccolò and Maffeo remained in Venice anticipating the election of a new pope, but in 1271, after two years of waiting, they departed with Marco for the Mongol court. He was age 15 or 16 when his father and uncle returned to meet him and learned that the pope, Clement IV, had recently died. Little is known about Marco’s early years except that he probably grew up in Venice. Establishing friendly relations with the great Kublai Khan, they eventually returned to Europe as his ambassadors, carrying letters asking the pope to send Kublai 100 intelligent men “acquainted with the Seven Arts” they also bore gifts and were asked to bring back oil from the lamp burning at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. When political events prevented their return to Venice, they traveled eastward to Bukhara (Bokhara) and ended their journey in 1265, probably at the grand khan’s summer residence, Shangdu (immortalized as Xanadu by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge). The Polos apparently managed their affairs well at Berke’s court, where they doubled their assets. The family appears to have been shrewd, alert, and courageous about 1260 they foresaw a political change in Constantinople (e.g., the overthrow of the Crusaders who had ruled since 1204 by Michael VIII Palaeologus in 1261), liquidated their property there, invested their capital in jewels, and set off for the Volga River, where Berke Khan, sovereign of the western territories in the Mongol Empire, held court at Sarai or Bulgar. The Polos spent a total of 17 years in China.
Marco, his father, and his uncle set out from Venice in 1271 and reached China in 1275. Marco Polo's travels to Asia (1271–95), immortalized in his Travels of Marco Polo.
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