POLO, MARCO (c. 1254-1324), Venetian traveller, was grandson of Andrea Polo of San Felice, and son of Nicolo Polo. The three Polos were presumably "noble," for Marco the traveller is officially so styled (nobilis vir). The three sons of Andrea Polo were engaged in commerce ; the eldest suggests, by his will, a long business partnership with Nicolo and Maffeo.
About 1260, Nicolo with his wife and Maffeo were at Constan tinople. The two brothers were led in their trading operations to the Crimea, and eventually to Bukhara, where they joined some envoys returning from a mission from Kublai Khan, with whom they journeyed to Cathay. (See CHINA.) It was the first time that the khan had met Europeans and he was delighted with the Venetian brothers, whom he sent back to the pope, with letters requesting the despatch of a body of educated men to instruct his people in Christianity and the liberal arts. Kublai saw the value of Christianity as a political weapon, and it was only when Rome failed him that he fell back upon Buddhism as his chief civilizing instrument.
On arriving at Acre in April 1269, the brothers learnt that no new pope had been appointed after the death of Clement IV. in the previous year; they therefore returned to Venice. The papal interregnum being exceptionally long the brothers resolved after two years, to start again for the East, taking with them Nicolo's son, Marco. They were furnished with letters authenticating their delay, but hearing of the papal election soon after their start, they returned to execute Kublai's mission. The new pope, however, could supply but two Dominicans, who soon lost heart and turned back.
Leaving Acre about Nov. 1271, Polo's book indicates that the party proceeded to Hormuz (Hurmuz) at the mouth of the Per sian gulf, with the purpose of going on to China by sea; but that, abandoning their plans, they returned northward through Persia. Traversing Kerman and Khurasan they went on to Balkh and Badakshan and ascended the upper Oxus through Wakhan to the plateau of Pamir (a name first heard in Marco's book).
These regions were hardly described again by any European traveller (save Benedict Goes) .till the expedition in 1838 of Lieut. John Wood of the Indian navy. Crossing the Pamir the travellers descended upon Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan (Khu tan). These are regions which remained almost absolutely closed to our knowledge till after 186o, when the temporary overthrow of the Chinese power, and the enterprise of British, Russian and other explorers, again made them known.
From Khotan the Polos passed on to the vicinity of Lop-Nor, reached for the first time since Polo's journey by Prjevalsky in 1871. Thence the desert of Gobi was crossed to Tangut, the region at the extreme north-west of China, within and without the Wall. In his account of the Gobi, or desert of Lop, as he calls it, Polo describes the waste, strikingly reproducing the de scription of the superstitious terrors of Suan T'sang, who crossed the desert six hundred years earlier.
Early in 1275 the Venetians were cordially received by the Great Khan at Shangtu, and Marco made rapid progress. The "young bachelor" studied the languages of the Khan's subjects and soon entered the public service. G. Pauthier found in the Chinese annals a record that in 1277 a certain Polo was nomi nated as a second-class commissioner or agent attached to the imperial council, a passage which we may apply to the young Venetian. On his public missions he travelled through the prov inces of Shansi, Shensi, and Szechuen, and the wild country on the borders of Tibet, to the remote province of Yunnan, called by the Mongols Karajang, and northern Burma (Mien). Marco, during his stay at court, had observed the khan's interest in strange countries, and his disgust at the stupidity of envoys and commissioners who could tell of nothing but their official business. He made notes on facts likely to interest Kublai, which, on his re turn, he related. He encountered many semi-civilized and bar barous tribes, many of which interested Kublai greatly.