The Tale of Marco Polo

Part 1 - the Return of the Polos

During the year 1550, Giovanni Battista Ramusio, an Italian geographer, would publish the first of three volumes of ‘Navigationi et Viaggi’ (Navigations and Travels) - his collection of first-hand accounts of the travels of illustrious explorers. In the second volume, he would publish Marco Polo’s account of his travels.

In the preface, Ramusio tells of how Marco Polo, and his father and uncle, were received upon their return to Venice, from Cathay - that he compares to the return of Ulysses to Ithaca:

“And when they got thither, the same fate befel them as befel Ulysses, who, when he returned, after his twenty years’ wanderings, to his native Ithaca, was recognized by nobody. Thus also those three gentlemen who had been so many years absent from their native city were recognized by none of their kinsfolk, who were under the firm belief that they had all been dead for many a year past, as indeed had been reported …

They proceeded on their arrival to their house in this city in the confine of St. John Chrysostom … Going thither they found it occupied by some of their relatives, and they had the greatest difficulty in making the latter understand who they should be. For these good people, seeing them to be in countenance so unlike what they used to be, and in dress so shabby, flatly refused to believe that they were those very gentlemen of the Ca’ Polo whom they had been looking upon for ever so many years as among the dead … the three gentlemen, I say, devised a scheme by which they should at once bring about their recognition by their relatives, and secure the honourable notice of the whole city … They invited a number of their kindred to an entertainment, which they took care to have prepared with great state and splendour in that house of theirs …

Messer Marco, as the youngest of the three, rose from table, and, going into another chamber, brought forth the three shabby dresses of coarse stuff which they had worn when they first arrived. Straightway they took sharp knives and began to rip up some of the seams and welts, and to take out of them jewels of the greatest value in vast quantities, such as rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds and emeralds, which had all been stitched up in those dresses in so artful a fashion that nobody could have suspected the fact. For when they took leave of the Great Can [Kublai Khan] they had changed all the wealth that he had bestowed upon them into this mass of rubies, emeralds, and other jewels, being well aware of the impossibility of carrying with them so great an amount in gold over a journey of such extreme length and difficulty. Now this exhibition of such a huge treasure of jewels and precious stones, all tumbled out upon the table, threw the guests into fresh amazement, insomuch that they seemed quite bewildered and dumbfounded.

And now they recognized that in spite of all former doubts these were in truth those honoured and worthy gentlemen of the Ca’ Polo that they claimed to be; and so all paid them the greatest honour and reverence. And when the story got wind in Venice, straightway the whole city, gentle and simple, flocked to the house to embrace them, and to make much of them, with every conceivable demonstration of affection and respect.”

So it seems that at first, no one in Venice recognized the Polos, especially their relatives who were living in their house, and perhaps didn’t want to have to move out! But once they saw all the diamonds and precious stones that the Polos had brought back with them, those fickle Venetians suddenly knew them and embraced them!!!

And my feathered friend chirped that it’s like today, if you won the lottery, and relatives that you never knew you had, suddenly appeared at your door to congratulate you (and to ask for a small favor)!!!

[next week - part 2 - the Writing of his Travels]