Daniele Petrella, an Italian archeological trouble-maker, recently claimed Marco Polo never went to China. His smoking gun, or lack thereof, is the fact that the fabled explorer claimed Mongolian warships had five masts, when in fact they only had three. Because everything everyone has ever said is without exaggeration.
In an era when Europeans still believed in mermaids, giant reptilian sea monsters and a fictitious Christian Kingdom in the Far East, overstating the size of the Mongolian armada is pretty darn excusable. Had it not been for the massive tidal waves that thwarted the Khan’s ambitions, Japan would have had a real mess on its hands. And nothing is crazier than when Mongolians get messy.
As far as world travelers go, no one comes close to Marco Polo. Not only is he remembered whenever kids play in swimming pools, but he literally wrote the first travelogue. But as party-pooper Dr. Fances Wood puts it, his travelogue is merely the first data-base of traveling.
Loath as I am to admit it, Dr. Wood made a pretty good case for Polo being a fibber in her 1995 book. More damning than his bogus and audacious claims of extravagant Mongolian masts, Dr. Wood has proven there is no record whatsoever that Polo ever went to China.
When Europe was reeling from the Black Death, and was considered too dirty to conquer by the Mongolians, China already had a sophisticated publishing system in place. The Yangzhou Gazzette is one such publication to come out of the Song Dynasty, and as earthshaking as the epic East-Meets-West should have been, there isn’t a single mention of the Venetian in any article.
Does that mean good ol’ Marco made up everything about high-fiving the Emperors?
One time I thought I met the governor of Jilin province, which made me feel like I had also met an Emperor. As it turned out I didn’t meet anyone that cool, but I still wrote about the experience. At the same time I’m not the guy who shaped history textbooks from Beijing to Timbuktu.
Then why do Chinese students, and I mean incredibly intelligent Chinese students with BAs from prestigious institutions, take it as fact that a Venetian went to China?
I’ve been told by a number of close Chinese friends that he wrote a book about his travels. And since books are never wrong, especially during an era when Europeans believed Jews caused the Black Death and brushing your teeth with urine was kosher, it must be true.
Dr. Wood explained it in a funny sort of way to me in an email exchange:
“The Chinese like Polo because they consider he 'discovered' China for Europe- in the same way, they liked Edward Heath because he recognized China and raised our relations to Ambassadorial level, ditto Richard Nixon.”
She went further by saying he probably made it well into Persia, and heard stories from traders along the Silk Road. He collected their stories, added an Italian re-tweaking, and there you have a book that served as the basis of European knowledge until the Age of Discovery.
Marco Polo in Hangzhou, there! Indisputable proof he went to China!
Who's your Great Khan?
Nonetheless, his statue remains tall and prominent in Hangzhou, the temporary capital of unoccupied Song China for 100 years (the Mongolians conquered China in stages, and when Chinese tribute from the south stopped flowing they collected with interest).
I’m not happy about it, but the arguments against Marco are pretty airtight. I’d love to hear from any Italians out there by the way, like, is it a little fishy that an Italian archeologist from Naples would try and smear the good name of a Venetian explorer?
