Polo, Marco


An Italian explorer of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries; one of the first Europeans to travel across Asia. He visited the court of Kublai Khan (seeKubla Khanunder “Literature in English”), the Mongol ruler of China, and became a government official in China. His account of his travels was distributed after his return to Italy.

Words Nearby Polo, Marco

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.