Marco Polo

The Venetian adventurer Marco Polo traveled from Europe to Asia in the late thirteenth century, as immortalised in his seminal work of travel literature. It describes Polo’s assorted travels throughout Asia and his experiences in the sumptuous court of Kublai Khan. Composed at a time when very little was known about the Far East, Polo’s account opened new vistas to the European mind, allowing Western horizons to expand. His description of Japan set a definite goal for Christopher Columbus in his journey of 1492, while Polo’s detailed discoveries of spices encouraged Western merchants to seek new sources and break trading monopolies. The wealth of geographic information recorded by Polo was widely used in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, fuelling an era of great European discoveries. Delphi’s Medieval Library provides eReaders with rare and precious works of the Middle Ages, with noted English translations and the original texts. This eBook presents Marco Polo’s complete text, with illustrations, an informative introduction and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)