household, recognized them. Three years after his return, Marco Polo, like other Venetian merchants, was serving in a naval fleet at war with the Venetian rival, Genoa. He was taken prisoner and supposedly dictated the story of his adventures to a fellow prisoner named Rusticello, a fairly well known author of adventure tales from Pisa.
There are a number of problems with Rusticello. He may have taken great liberties to improve on the story. Whole passages appear to have been borrowed from his previous books, which were imaginary romantic adventures. For example, the arrival of the Polos at the court of Kublai Khan bears a disturbing resemblance to the account of Tristan’s arrival in Camelot in Rusticello’s book on King Arthur.
From its initial publication in 1300, the Venetians were suspicious. Some questioned if Marco Polo had ever gone to China at all. Why did he write nothing of the Great Wall, about the drinking of tea, about princesses with bound feet? It seemed odd to the few knowledgeable Venetians, and it has seemed suspicious to subsequent scholars that Marco Polo completely missed the fact that China had printing presses in an age when this pivotal invention had not yet been seen in Europe. This omission seemed even more glaring to Venetians 150 years later, once Johannes Gutenberg introduced movable type to Europe, and Venice became a leading printing center.
His book was full of unheard-of details and was missing many of the facts known to other merchants. But later travelers to China were able to verify some of the curious details of Marco Polo’s book. And he had been away somewhere for twenty-five years. Polo’s account sparked an interest in Chinese trade among many Europeans, including Christopher Columbus, and remained the basis of the Western concept of China until the ninteenth century. His legend has grown.
It is widely accepted that he introduced Italians to pasta. It is true that China at the time, and still today, abounded in fresh and dried, flat and stuffed pastas. But Marco Polo’s book says almost nothing about pasta other than the fact, which he found very curious, that it was sometimes made from a flour ground from the fruit of a tree. Maccheroni, one of the oldest Italian words for pasta, appears to be from Neopolitan dialect and was used before Marco Polo’s return. The word is mentioned in a book from Genoa dated 1279. Most Sicilians are certain that the first pasta came from their island, introduced by the Muslim conquerors in the ninth century. The hard durum wheat or semolina used to make pasta was grown by the ancient Greeks, who may have made some pasta dishes, and the Romans ate something similar to lasagna. The word lasagna may come from the ancient Greek lagana , meaning “ribbon,” or from the ancient Greek word lasanon , which probably would not make the dish Greek since the word means “chamber pot.” The Romans, according to this theory, started using lasanon—presumably not the same ones but perhaps a similarly shaped vessel—as a pot for baking a noodle dish.
Marco Polo never mentioned that the Chinese printed paper money, but it is more significant that he did describe how in Kain-du salt cakes made with images of the khan stamped on them were used for money. Among the unexpected details in Polo’s book are many on salt and the Chinese salt administration. Polo described travelers journeying for days to get to hills where the salt was so pure it could simply be chipped away. He wrote of the revenue earned by the emperor from the brine springs in the province of Karazan, how salt was made in Changli to the profit of both the private and public sector, how Koigan-zu made salt and the emperor derived revenues from it. Marco Polo seldom mentioned salt without pointing out the state revenues derived by the emperor.
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant and may have been genuinely interested in salt and the way it was administered. He also may have decided that, since his
There are a number of problems with Rusticello. He may have taken great liberties to improve on the story. Whole passages appear to have been borrowed from his previous books, which were imaginary romantic adventures. For example, the arrival of the Polos at the court of Kublai Khan bears a disturbing resemblance to the account of Tristan’s arrival in Camelot in Rusticello’s book on King Arthur.
From its initial publication in 1300, the Venetians were suspicious. Some questioned if Marco Polo had ever gone to China at all. Why did he write nothing of the Great Wall, about the drinking of tea, about princesses with bound feet? It seemed odd to the few knowledgeable Venetians, and it has seemed suspicious to subsequent scholars that Marco Polo completely missed the fact that China had printing presses in an age when this pivotal invention had not yet been seen in Europe. This omission seemed even more glaring to Venetians 150 years later, once Johannes Gutenberg introduced movable type to Europe, and Venice became a leading printing center.
His book was full of unheard-of details and was missing many of the facts known to other merchants. But later travelers to China were able to verify some of the curious details of Marco Polo’s book. And he had been away somewhere for twenty-five years. Polo’s account sparked an interest in Chinese trade among many Europeans, including Christopher Columbus, and remained the basis of the Western concept of China until the ninteenth century. His legend has grown.
It is widely accepted that he introduced Italians to pasta. It is true that China at the time, and still today, abounded in fresh and dried, flat and stuffed pastas. But Marco Polo’s book says almost nothing about pasta other than the fact, which he found very curious, that it was sometimes made from a flour ground from the fruit of a tree. Maccheroni, one of the oldest Italian words for pasta, appears to be from Neopolitan dialect and was used before Marco Polo’s return. The word is mentioned in a book from Genoa dated 1279. Most Sicilians are certain that the first pasta came from their island, introduced by the Muslim conquerors in the ninth century. The hard durum wheat or semolina used to make pasta was grown by the ancient Greeks, who may have made some pasta dishes, and the Romans ate something similar to lasagna. The word lasagna may come from the ancient Greek lagana , meaning “ribbon,” or from the ancient Greek word lasanon , which probably would not make the dish Greek since the word means “chamber pot.” The Romans, according to this theory, started using lasanon—presumably not the same ones but perhaps a similarly shaped vessel—as a pot for baking a noodle dish.
Marco Polo never mentioned that the Chinese printed paper money, but it is more significant that he did describe how in Kain-du salt cakes made with images of the khan stamped on them were used for money. Among the unexpected details in Polo’s book are many on salt and the Chinese salt administration. Polo described travelers journeying for days to get to hills where the salt was so pure it could simply be chipped away. He wrote of the revenue earned by the emperor from the brine springs in the province of Karazan, how salt was made in Changli to the profit of both the private and public sector, how Koigan-zu made salt and the emperor derived revenues from it. Marco Polo seldom mentioned salt without pointing out the state revenues derived by the emperor.
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant and may have been genuinely interested in salt and the way it was administered. He also may have decided that, since his
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