spinesongs:marco polo characters + historical counterparts -> Marco Polo/”Il Milione” (15 Septemb

spinesongs:marco polo characters + historical counterparts -> Marco Polo/”Il Milione” (15 September 1254–8 January 1324)Marco Polo was the most renowned Christian in the exchanges between East and West in Khubilai’s time. As Marco tells it, his travels to the East were preceded by the trip of his father Nicolo and his uncle Maffeo to the Mongolian court.  Khubilai was delighted with his visitors. According to Marco, Khubilai “beamed with the greatest kindness” and “received them with great honour and makes them great joy and very great festival.”…in Marco [Khubilai] received a bonus: the services of a capable and clever young man who was intelligent enough to have become proficient in several languages, including Persian and possibly Mongolian, en route to China. Marco asserts that he and Khubilai had numerous conversations, and he offers a vivid, colorful verbal portrait of the Great Khan. [x.]Sometime around 1292 a Mongolian princess [Kokachin] was to be sent to Persia to become the consort of Arghun Khan, and the Polos offered to accompany her. Marco wrote that Kublai had been unwilling to let them go but finally granted permission. They were eager to leave, in part, because Kublai was nearly 80, and his death (and the consequent change in regime) might have been dangerous for a small group of isolated foreigners. The princess, with some 600 courtiers and sailors, and the Polos boarded 14 ships, which left the port of Quanzhou  and sailed southward. [After the voyage, they handed] over the princess not to Arghun, who had died, but to his son Maḥmūd Ghāzān.The Polos eventually departed for Europe. After further delays, they reached Constantinople and finally Venice (1295).  Soon after his return to Venice, Polo was taken prisoner by the Genoese during a skirmish or battle in the Mediterranean. He was then imprisoned in Genoa, where he had a felicitous encounter with a prisoner from Pisa, Rustichello. Polo may have intended to write about his 25 years in Asia but possibly did not feel sufficiently comfortable in either Venetian or Franco-Italian; however, with Rustichello at hand, the traveler began dictating his tale. Polo was soon freed and returned to Venice. The remainder of his life can be reconstructed, in part, through the testimony of legal documents. He seems to have led a quiet existence, managing a not too conspicuous fortune and dying at age 70. [x.] -- source link

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