In the late th century, the Venetian merchant Marco Polo (–
) visited a large city in China that he called Kinsai (or Quinsay).
Today, it is called Hangzhou and is the capital of Zhejiang Province in the People’s Republic of China. Since , Hangzhou—then called Lin’an—was the capital of the empire of the Song dynasty (–
..). By the time Marco Polo reached it, the national capital had
moved to Beijing, and Kub- lai Khan (–) ruled the empire. Th e map shows the location of Hangzhou,
miles ( km) south- west of Shanghai.
According to Marco Polo’s account, Kinsai con- tained . million houses, including many pala- tial mansions. When he arrived, agents of Kublai Khan were conducting a census, and Polo obtained his information from them. Modern estimates suggest the total popula- tion was really to . mil- lion. It is possible that the khan’s agents were infl at- ing the population fi gures to increase the amount of tax the city could be charged. Nevertheless, Kinsai, or Hangzhou, was, and is still, a big and important commercial city.
China had earlier been divided in two. Until Kublai united it into a single empire, the southern part, ruled by Song dynasty kings, had been called Manzi. Th e last Song king had departed, but Kinsai still contained his palace and its garden. Everything about Kinsai impressed Polo, but especially the palace. “No words of mine could describe its superlative magnifi cence,” he wrote. He stated that the palace and its grounds occupied a space about miles ( km) in circumference, originally enclosed by high walls topped with battle- ments. Th e area was divided into three parts. Th e fi rst comprised a large and luxurious pavilion, the second a cloistered courtyard containing the royal chambers. A covered corridor, six paces wide, led from this courtyard to a large lake (which is still one of the city’s main tourist attractions). Th ere were more courtyards on either
Shanghai
Hangzhou
Zhejiang Province
Fujian Province Anhui Province
Jiangxi Province
Jiangsu Province
Suzhou
Huzhou Wuhu
Jiaxing
Shaoxing
Shangyu
Ningbo
Taizhou
Lishui
Wenzhou
Rui’an
Jianyang
Jinhua Quzhou
Huangshan
Zhoushan Xuanzhou
East China Sea Yellow
Sea
Hangzhou Wan
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01/14/2009
Hangzhou is the capital of Zhejiang Province of the People’s Republic of China.
The map shows its location at the head of the Yangtze Delta, beside the Qiantang River. Marco Polo called the city Kinsai. Much of the city that Polo saw was destroyed during a rebellion in the 19th century.
side of the main corridor. Each of these courtyards contained
houses and each house had a garden. Th e houses accommodated the
, young women in the service of the king, some of whom accom- panied the king and queen when they sailed on the lake in elaborately decorated barges. Th e main pavilion and other accommodations occupied one-third of the total area. Polo described the third section, two-thirds of the total area—about fi ve square miles ( km) if Polo’s estimate was correct—in the following words:
Th e other two-thirds of the enclosure were laid out in lakes fi lled with fi sh and groves and exquisite gardens, planted with every con- ceivable variety of fruit-tree and stocked with all sorts of animals such as roebuck, harts, stags, hares, and rabbits. Here the king would roam at pleasure with his damsels, partly in carriages, partly on horseback, and no man ever intruded. He would have the damsels hunt with hounds and give chase to the animals.
Marco Polo did not witness this hunt himself, of course. He writes that he is repeating the account given to him by a merchant he met in Kinsai, “a man of ripe years who had been intimately acquainted with King Facfur and knew all about his life and had seen the palace in all its glory.” His new acquaintance took Polo through the grounds, where he reported that “the chambers of the damsels have all fallen in ruin, and only vestiges of them remain. Likewise the wall that encircled the groves and gardens has fallen to the ground, and neither trees nor animals are left.”
Facfur was the last Song ruler of Manzi and, says Marco Polo, it was his lifestyle that brought him down. “Amid this perpetual dalli- ance he idled his time away without once hearing the name of arms.
And this at last was his undoing, because through his unmanliness and self-indulgence he was deprived by the Great Khan of all his state to his utter shame and disgrace.”
Marco Polo may have exaggerated, but it is probable that the Song kings enjoyed a garden of this kind. Many wealthy individuals main- tained grounds of this type, if not of this size.
Marco Polo was born in Venice on September , . His father, Niccoló Polo, was a merchant. Niccoló and his two brothers Maff eo and Marco were business partners trading with Asia. In
Niccoló and Maff eo sailed from Constantinople (now Istanbul),
where they had been living for several years, to Sudak, a port in the Crimea where there was a Venetian colony and where their brother Marco owned a house. Th ey were seeking better markets and after a time they moved eastward from Sudak, forming or join- ing a caravan transporting goods to Sarai Batu, a city on the River Volga where Berke Khan, ruler of the Mongol state known as the Golden Horde, had established his capital. Th ey remained there for about a year, but when they wished to return home they found their route blocked by a war that had broken out between Berke and his cousin Hülegü Khan. Th e Polo brothers sought refuge in Bukhara, in modern Uzbekistan, which was neutral. Stranded in Bukhara, the brothers learned the Mongol language, and when they were off ered an opportunity to join a diplomatic mission from Hulagu to his brother, Kublai Khan, they gladly accepted. In , the Polo brothers reached the city of Dadu (modern Beijing), Kublai’s capital.
Kublai was an intelligent, humanitarian, highly cultured man. He welcomed the two Westerners warmly and listened to all they had to tell him about the West. Kublai sent them back to Europe with a safe conduct—a kind of passport—as well as gifts for the pope and a letter requesting men to teach his people about Christianity and Western customs and some holy oil from Jerusalem. Th e Polos reached Acre, in what is now northern Israel, in , and from there returned to Italy. Pope Clement IV had died in , and it was before Gregory X was elected to succeed him. Th e new pope received Kublai’s letter and gifts and blessed the Polos. He could not fi nd scholars, but he sent the oil and two Dominican monks. Th e monks gave up, but the two Polo brothers, this time accompanied by the -year-old Marco, persevered and in they reached Dadu and presented Kublai with the gifts sent by the pope.
Marco was an excellent linguist and entertaining storyteller, and he became a favorite with Kublai Khan.
Th e three Polos remained at the court of Kublai Khan for
years, during which time the khan sent Marco on various missions around the country. In Kublai released them and they set out for home, escorting a Mongol princess who was to be the bride of Arghun Khan, the Mongol ruler of the Levant. Th e journey took them two years, sailing through the Malay Strait, around India to Hormuz at the southern end of the Persian Gulf, overland to Trebi- zond on the Black Sea coast, and by sea from there to Venice. Chi-
nese and Persian sources attest that Marco’s sketchy account of the voyage is substantially accurate, although they do not confi rm the heroic part the Polos played in their adventures. Th e map shows the route the Polos followed.
ASIA
AFRICA
EUROPE
Tagaung Yunnan
Suifu Khotan
Kashgar Bulgar
Erzerum Venice
Kerman Jerusalem
Constantinople
Samarkand
Amoy Hangzhou Shangdu
Beijing
Quilon
Comari
Singapore
0 miles 1,000 2,000
0 km 1,000 2,000 3,000
Calicut Cambay Veraval
Black Sea
Caspian Sea
South China Sea
Yellow Sea Red
Sea
Arabian Sea
I N D I A N O C E A N
Bay of Bengal Med
iterra nean
Sea
Tagaung Venice
Jerusalem
Samarkand
Hangzhou Erzerum
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DTE-Animals-007-marcopolo.ai 01/12/2009
The route, shown by a heavy line, is that which Niccoló, Maff eo, and Marco Polo followed from Venice through the lands ruled by Kublai Khan and back to Venice. The pale line shows what is thought to be the route the two Polo brothers followed on their earlier journey.
Th e Polos arrived back in Venice in and became celebri- ties. In Marco was captured during a war between Venice and Genoa and was held by the Genoese as a prisoner of war. While he was imprisoned, Marco described his travels to a fellow prisoner Rustichello da Pisa, who was a writer of romances. Th ey wrote Th e Travels together. Th e fi rst edition was written in Old French and entitled Le divisament dou monde (Th e description of the world).
Th at version is lost, but it had already been translated into Latin and from there into Italian. Th e book was soon translated into several other languages, and it was an immediate success.
Th e war between Venice and Genoa ended in , and Marco was released. He returned to Venice, where his family had bought a large house out of the profi ts from their travels. Marco was now wealthy. In
he married Donata Badoer, and they had three daughters, Fan- tina, Belela, and Moreta, all of whom later married into aristocratic families. Marco died at home in January , leaving most of his possessions to be divided among his children.