Marco Polo (1254—1324), a Venetian, spent a quarter of a century on faraway travels. For 17 of those years, he served as the trusted man and advisor to the conqueror of China and founder of the Yuan dynasty, the great Mongol Khan Kublai. Carrying out the Khan’s assignments, he traveled across all of Asia. On his way home, he circled it from the sea by ship—from the Chinese shores, across Sumatra and Ceylon, to the port of Ormuz in the Persian Gulf.
For already 700 years, his “The Book of Marvels of the World” has never ceased to amaze and delight grateful readers: in it, Marco Polo tells about the countries he visited, the peoples living there, and the wonderful and astonishing oddities he encountered on his journeys.