Ju kun marco polo biography and contribution to philosophy

The biography of Marco Polo tells the story of one of the most famous explorers of all time. Leaving Venice with his father and uncle, he spent 24 years going all the way from Israel to China, where he lived for 17 years. His life story involves working for the great Kublai Khan personally, surviving perilous journeys, and eventually writing one of the greatest travelogues of all time.

Ju kun marco polo biography and contribution to philosophy: j u ~ h

But who was Marco Polo? In addition to being an explorer, he was a merchant, a soldier, and a keen observer of strange cultures. He also was known to be a braggart and an exaggerator. Some modern scholars don't believe that Marco Polo wrote his famous Travels or even went to China at all. With hundreds of different versions of the book and some that omit basic facts about life in China , it's likely that the original dictations he made are lost to history.

Marco's father Nicollo and his uncle Maffeo were among the most successful traveling merchants in the Kingdom of Venice. Both brothers were born in , and in , they left Venice for Constantinople, where they lived with fellow Venetians and set up a trading post. The Polo brothers had the bad timing to come back to Venice in , during a time when the Papacy was vacant.

Clement IV had died a year earlier, and the Vatican was in the middle of a three year struggle to elect a new pope - one that dragged on so long the electors were put on rations of bread and water, and eventually put in a roof-less room to speed them along.