tirsdag 19. mars 2024

EXHIBITION IN VENICE: "THE WORLDS OF MARCO POLO THE JOURNEY OF A 13TH–CENTURY VENETIAN MERCHANT"

Marco Polo (1254-1324) was certainly the most illustrious traveller of the Middle Ages and beyond. Before and after him others successfully made journeys to the East. But Marco Polo, by his extraordinary Travels (original entitled Il Milione), is undoubtedly the best-known and most celebrated figure to have travelled from the West to the Far East and to have left a full and richly documented account of what he saw. 

The Venetian Marco Polo, moreover, not only described most of Asia in a broadly reliable way, but also acted as the supreme interpreter and representative of the international mercantile character of his homeland Venice. It is clear that the fame and glory of the Serenissima as the commercial capital of the West was largely created and spread by this extraordinary and adventurous son of the city. Significantly, he was named after its patron, St. Mark, whose remains were also brought from the East, in this case the Near East. Celebrating Marco Polo and his travels 700 years after his death provides an important opportunity to recount his superlative and incomparable life and his knowledge of those distant lands and peoples [his books were written “so that people may know the things that exist in the world…”].

It also reveals the relations between these different worlds today and how the “Silk Roads” have not lost their importance or relevance.