“No one—Christian, Muslim, Tatar, or idolater—has traveled to all the places visited by Master Marco, son of Nicolò Polo, a noble and distinguished citizen of Venice.” (p. 446)
Marco Polo was only seventeen when, in 1271, he set out with his father and uncle on a journey that would last twenty-four years and play an important part in shaping the modern world. As they embarked on their trading journey, Mevlâna Jalal al-Din Rumi had just written his finest poems and had completed his Mesnevi about ten years earlier. He had two years left to live.
Returning from the twenty-four-year expedition he had begun as a youth of seventeen, Marco Polo was now forty-one and found his homeland, Venice, at war with Genoa. Misfortune led to his capture by the Genoese. He did not remain idle in his cell, however: he dictated the “Harikalar Kitabı” discussed here to, in the book’s words, “the gentleman Rustichello, a citizen of Pisa, who was with him in the same tower in Genoa.” He told his companion about China, Anatolia, Georgian kings, Iran, and the Pamir Mountains, firing European imaginations. That awakened imagination and curiosity about other lands helped set in motion a chain of discoveries, new trade routes, and many other developments.
Centuries later, this book recounts its author’s experiences to us in an entirely different language—one he never heard in his lifetime. It is the book people read in wonder centuries ago in their homes, perhaps lying in bed or sitting at a candlelit table, asking themselves about worlds, lives, and trading opportunities beyond the horizon. It broke through the thick walls surrounding Europeans, brought the world beyond the horizon into their homes, and filled them with excitement. That historical perspective is itself profoundly exciting. Beyond all this, the book’s value for Turkic–Mongol history makes it an exceptional resource for anyone studying the subject, with vivid descriptions of Kublai Khan’s court and its customs.
Ötüken Yayınları recently brought this valuable work back into Turkish in an edition distinguished by both its content and its printing quality. Translated by Işık Ergüden and Z. Zühre İlkgelen, the 454-page volume has clearly been prepared with great care.
Finally, if you have read Marco Polo’s account of the final quarter of the thirteenth century and become curious about what happened in the next, we suggest asking Ibn Battuta. His work offers extraordinary information and scenes from the fourteenth-century world and the Ottoman founding period...
