Marco Polo (French text)

Marco Polo (Venice, 1254), son of Venetian merchants, left in 1271 with his father Niccolò and his uncle Matteo, towards the distant China at the court of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. The long journey, which lasted three and a half years, led the Polos to cross Turkey, Central Asia, the Pamir, and the Gobi desert. The intelligence of the young Marco and his curiosity towards new customs and languages raises the interest of the emperor so much that he decides to keep him at his court by appointing him ambassador. This assignment takes him to newly conquered southern China and other parts of southern Asia. In 1292, the Great Kublai Khan agrees, albeit reluctantly, to let him go.Marco, after 17 years at his service, can finally return to Venice, but not before completing a last mission for the Grand Khan: accompanying his niece, Princess Kokachin, to Persia, where she would marry. A few years after his arrival in Venice, Marco finds himself involved in a naval battle against the Genoese people in which the Venetians are defeated. Consequently, Marco is captured and taken to prison in Genoa. There, he meets the storyteller Rustichello da Pisa to whom he tells the story of his adventurous journey. After his release, Marco returned to Venice and led a comfortable life until his death in 1324.