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)* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Polo's life and adventures* Features the complete extant works of Marco Polo, in both English translation and Giovanni Battista Ramusio s original Italian text* The complete Yule-Cordier 1903 translation, with hundreds of illustrations and footnotes* Concise introduction to the text* Superior formatting* Easily locate the sections you want to read with individual contents tables* Features four bonus biographies discover Polo's medieval worldCONTENTS:The TranslationBrief Introduction to Marco PoloThe Travels of Marco Polo (c. 1300)The Original TextThe Italian TextThe BiographiesMarco Polo (1832) by James Augustus St. JohnSir Marco Polo, the Venetian, and His Travels in Asia (1893) by W. H. Davenport AdamsMarco Polo (1904) by John H. HaarenMarco Polo (1911) by Henry Yule and Charles Raymond Beazley
