Bridge), Il Milion is the oldest Osteria (restaurant) in Venice still in
existence today.
With a tradition extending back more than 300 years and a location
near the rear of San Giovanni Crisostomo, this restaurant is named
after the book written by Marco Polo, Il Milion, describing his travels.
In fact, it occupies a town house once owned by members of the
explorer's family. The bar, incidentally, is a favorite with some of the
gondoliers.
strangers in 1265 AD. The
Himalaya Mountains and the
Gobi Desert were natural
boundaries that were difficult to
cross. Niccolo and Maffeo Polo
were two Italian merchants from
Venice who made the five year
journey along the Silk Road to
China where they met emperor
Kublai Khan, who was
fascinated by their stories of
their homeland.
were accompanied by Marco Polo, Nicolo's seventeen year old son. They encountered
Persians, Turks, Mongols, and many other cultures before reaching China in 1274.
Kublai Khan was delighted by the return of the Polos and employed them for the next
seventeen years. Kublai Khan was a Mongol who mistrusted the Chinese people and was
more comfortable with the Polos, who, like himself, were foreigners.
wanted to return home. Kublai Khan was nearing eighty
years old and his death might have been dangerous for a
small group of isolated foreigners. A Mongol princess was
about to be sent by sea to become the bride of Arghum
Khan, a Persian prince who lived in the modern nation of
Iran. The Polos offered to accompany the princess, and
Kublai Khan Khan granted his permission for the Italians to
accompany her on their way home to Venice.
fourteen ships with six hundred
people aboard. The fleet
stopped on the island of Sumatra
for five months to avoid monsoon
storms. Marco noticed that on
Sumatra, the North Star seemed
to have dipped below the
horizon. We now know that this is
because they were in the
Khan had died, so they gave the princess to his son. The Polos finally returned to Venice
in 1295, but not before they were robbed of most of their possessions while in Turkey.
Soon after the Polos returned home, Venice went to war with the rival city-state of Genoa.
Genoa captured Marco Polo and sent him to prison. There he met Rustichello, a popular
writer of romance stories. Marco reported his twenty-five year Asian adventure to his
fellow prisoner. Their combined work became one of the most influential books in history,
the Description of the World (Il Milion), now known more commonly as the Adventures of
Marco Polo.
Il Milion was written before the invention of the printing press, so copies were made by
hand. The book delighted its readers and stimulated interest in China. Christopher
Columbus owned a copy and studied it closely before beginning his journey in 1492 to
what he thought would be China. Some observers saw Marco Polo as an astute observer
with a keen memory. Others argue that Marco Polo made up his stories based on gossip
and stories he heard. Marco failed to mention the Great Wall of China, tea, or the
Chinese practice of binding the feet of women. Kublai Khan's records make no mention of
the Polos. As an old man, Marco was asked if he invented the stories in his book. His
answer was that he barely told half of what he actually knew.
