Marco Polo is one of the most adventurous travelers in the world, who told a lot about his world about his contemporaries. And let him drive not courage, but benefit – he was first of all a merchant, not a researcher – all the same his contribution to the development of geography and culture is priceless. The information he learned during his travels became a solid foundation for many further studies.
Some of the facts described by Marco Polo in his autobiographical book on his journey are still not confirmed. Many researchers believe that the famous Venetian merchant had a passion for embellishment.
A copy of the book of Marco Polo took with him to his voyage Columbus.
Marco Polo during his stay in China for three years was the governor of Yangzhou City.
Total Polo lived in China for seventeen years.
Because of Marco Polo, the island of Madagascar got its name, although the merchant described the port city of Mogadishu, calling it “Madejaskar”. Nevertheless, the name caught on.
Return from China to Venice on a Chinese ship took Marco Polo about a year and a half.
His famous book Marco Polo wrote, sitting in the Genoese prison, where he fell after a battle between the Venetians and the Genoese, during which he was taken prisoner.
The volume of the book Marco Polo since its first publication has increased almost twenty times.
On the true nationality of Marco Polo are fried arguments – so, some historians claim that he was a Pole or a Croat.
Marco Polo invented the word “million”. The largest number was then a thousand, but Polo found this word insufficiently capacious to describe the riches of his admiring China.
Marco Polo spoke five languages, including Chinese and Mongolian.
During the life of Marco Polo, many contemporaries treated him very skeptically, considering him a liar and an inventor, telling tales about distant countries.
