Niccolò Polo
Niccolò Polo († around 1300) was a Venetian merchant and father of the famous medieval traveler to China Marco Polo (around 1254–1324). Together with his brother Maffeo Polo († between 1309 and 1318), Niccolò Polo undertook a first trade trip to the Mongol Empire from about 1260 to 1269 , was well received by Kublai Khan and commissioned by him to send Christian missionaries on the journey home . Niccolò and Maffeo Polo took young Marco with them on their second trip to Asia in 1271 and stayed in the empire of the Great Khan until around 1292, but little is known about their activities there. Nothing is known about her life after her return to Venice in 1295.
Parentage and family
The Polo family split into two branches in the early 13th century. Representatives of these two lines called themselves to distinguish themselves after the parishes in which they lived, the Polos of San Felice and the Polos of San Geremia . According to the Stemma cited by the Scottish orientalist Henry Yule in his edition of Marco Polo's travel description , Niccolò Polo was the son of an Andrea Polo belonging to the former branch and, in addition to his younger brother Maffeo, had an older brother Marco , who was to distinguish it from the well-known world traveler Marco Polo Older is called. In addition to his son Marco (* around 1254, † 1324), Niccolò Polo had another son named Maffeo from a woman of unknown name, possibly from another marriage, and two illegitimate sons Stefano and Giovannino .
First trip to Kublai Khan
Nine short opening chapters of Marco Polo's travelogue are the only evidence that his father Niccolò and his uncle Maffeo undertook an extensive trade trip to the East during his childhood, which led them to the court of Kublai Khan . Accordingly, Niccolò Polo left his wife, who was pregnant with Marco, back home when he set off and first traveled with his brother Maffeo to Constantinople , where they brought a large shipload of goods. This important city was conquered in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade with the participation of the Venetians under their Doge Enrico Dandolo and then belonged to the Latin Empire . The Republic of San Marco was able to promote its economic interests very much because it now dominated the Black Sea trade. Many Venetian merchants established trading establishments in Constantinople at that time, including Niccolò's brother Marco Polo the Elder for a time, as can be seen from his will of August 27, 1280. According to this document, the uncle of the famous world traveler of the same name also owned a branch in Soldaia in the Crimea .
Niccolò and Maffeo Polo had business ties with their older brother Marco. They ended their stay in Constantinople around 1260, probably because they could clearly see the imminent decline of the Latin Empire, which largely guaranteed the Venetian hegemony on the Bosporus , and they did not want to be drawn into the turmoil associated with it. Marco Polo reports nothing of such motives for leaving Constantinople. According to his version, his father and uncle only had the intention of increasing their trading capital, which is why they bought precious stones before leaving Constantinople and then went to Soldaia after a voyage through the Black Sea . Perhaps they were just moving from one family trading post to the next, looking for new trade routes further east from there.
The further route led Niccolò and Maffeo Polo to the city of Sarai , located on the lower reaches of the Volga in the area of the Golden Horde , where Berke Khan , a grandson of Genghis Khan , resided. In a courtly painted image, Marco Polo tells that his relatives were received with honor by Berke Khan. According to this report, the two Venetians offered their precious stones to the ruler of the Western Mongols as a gift because they found his delight, but received a gift in return that was twice as valuable. There are documentary evidence according to which other Italian merchants also handed over their goods to Mongol princes and received other items of trade in return, the price of which was entirely at the discretion of the respective khan, which, in addition to often good profit prospects, also resulted in a certain risk for the merchants.
Marco Polo is silent about details of the stay of his relatives in the realm of Berke Khan, such as any trading activities. According to his account, Niccolò Polo and his brother wanted to return to their homeland after staying in the empire of the Golden Horde for a year, but a war between Berke Khan and Hülegü would have blocked their return route to Constantinople. Marina Münkler does not consider this version to be plausible, since the inner Mongolian fighting took place in the Caucasus far south of the road from Sarai to Soldaia and thus hardly blocked the way to Constantinople. Rather, the reconquest of the metropolis by Mikhail VIII. Palaiologos (1261) and the subsequent expulsion of the Venetians there were the real obstacles to the Polos' planned journey home via Constantinople.
In any case, Niccolò and Maffeo Polo from Sarai turned first eastward, passing the Caspian Sea to the north. Then they traveled southeast between this sea and the Aral Sea to Bukhara . This city was an important station on the Silk Road and was located in the Chagatai Khanate , in which inner Mongolian fighting raged again. The military conflicts were related to the fratricidal war between Kublai Khan and Arig-Böke , both of whom sought supremacy as Great Khan. As a result, the Venetians were stuck again and could not leave Bukhara either west or east. Marco Polo does not report anything about the wars responsible for this, but only mentions the three-year stay of his father and uncle in Bukhara, without giving further details about their lifestyle at the time. Regarding the circumstances under which his relatives finally managed to leave, he explains that a messenger sent by Hülegü to Kublai Khan came to Bukhara on the way around 1264, met the Venetians, pleased and offered to join him. According to him, Kublai Khan has never seen a Latin and would take them well. Since this gave them the prospect of safe escort to Kublai Khan, the Polos would have accepted the proposal.
The way to the unnamed residence of Kublai Khan, who finally prevailed in the power struggle against Arig-Böke in 1264, took Niccolò Polo and his brother a whole year. According to Marco Polo's story, the Great Khan received the Venetians graciously, organized a festival in their honor and asked them for information about the rulers, the administration of justice, the art of war and the Christian religion in the western empires. According to this description, the polos went from merchants to cultural mediators who would have liked to answer Kublai Khan's questions in the Tatar language, which they now had a good command of. The Franciscan envoy Wilhelm von Rubruk , who was still thinking of the devastating incursion of Batu Khan into Eastern Europe in 1241 , had, on the other hand, exercised much greater restraint in 1254 in his replies to the questions of the then Great Khan Möngke ; the mistrust of the Mongols was too great in his day.
In the further report Marco Polo tells that his father and uncle were commissioned by Kublai Khan with a mission to the Pope when they returned home. The Mongol ruler had asked the spiritual head of Christianity in a letter sent with the Polos to send one hundred men experienced in the seven liberal arts , who should try to explain to the scholars of his empire plausibly that the Christian faith is based on deeper truth than the Mongolian religion . Furthermore, when the Polos returned to his court, they should bring him a few drops of the holy oil from the lamp of Jesus' tomb in Jerusalem . Mongol rulers often used Italian long-distance trade merchants as envoys to European powers, but the focus here was on military-political aspects such as forging an alliance against the Mamluks rather than religious intentions.
According to Marco Polo, the Venetians set off home with the Mongolian officer Khogatal together with the Mongolian officer, but their companion stayed behind on the way due to an illness, provided with a gold plaque that gave them the right to provide provisions, guides and a hostel throughout the Kublais kingdom. After a three-year journey, the Polos finally arrived via Ayas in April 1269 in the port city of Acre , but after the death of Pope Clement IV on November 29, 1268, there was a period of sedis vacancy . Allegedly on the advice of the cardinal legate Tebaldo Visconti , who was then in Acre, the Venetians decided to wait for the election of a new Pope and in the meantime to go back to Venice. Marco Polo's depiction of Tebaldo Visconti is probably inaccurate, as Tebaldo Visconti was apparently not in Acre in 1269, but only arrived there in 1271.
Second trip to Kublai Khan and later life
When he arrived in Venice, Niccolò Polo learned of his wife's death and met his son Marco, who was now around 15 years old. His report does not show how the two returned merchants were received after such a long absence, nor does it give any other details about their stay in their home country. All that is said is that after two years of unsuccessful waiting for the election of a Pope in 1271, the Polo brothers decided to set off again for the East, taking young Marco with them, because they did not want to postpone their second trip to the Great Khan.
The Polos first stopped in Acre and, with the consent of Tebaldo Visconti, bought some oil from the lamp in the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem. The three Venetians set out for Ayas with a letter from the Cardinal Legate to the Great Khan, which confirmed the honest efforts of the Polos to fulfill their mandates and justified their partial failure with the continuing vacancy. On the way they soon learned that the legate had meanwhile been elected Pope as Gregory X. on September 1, 1271, and traveled back to Acre at his request. The Holy Father handed them letters to the Great Khan and gave them at least two Dominican monks , Niccolò da Vicenza and Guglielmo da Tripoli , who happened to be in Acre . The latter is known to be familiar with the Orient and familiar with the Pope. However, there are no curial documents confirming the correspondence of Gregory X with Kublai Khan mentioned by Marco Polo, nor are there any other usual copies of this correspondence. According to the famous world traveler, the two monks accompanying the Polos turned back on the march through Armenia , allegedly out of fear of the Egyptian sultan's invasion of this region, so that the three Venetians continued on their own and it was not until 1275 that Kublai Khan entered his summer residence in Shangdu met.
Marco Polo mentions the honorable reception that the Great Khan gave him and his father and uncle. Niccolò and Maffeo Polo gave the Mongol ruler Gregor's letters and gifts as well as the oil from the Holy Sepulcher and introduced him to the young Marco, who had been appointed honorary companion to Kublai Khan. From now on Marco Polo takes the central role in the further narration of the prologue of his travelogue. For seventeen years now, on the orders of the Great Khan, he had toured many areas of his empire and always reported to his client, to his full satisfaction, on the conditions prevailing in the regions he visited. The author gives only a few details about the course of these trips and his other living conditions. So practically nothing is known about the activities of the two older Polos during this long period.
Only on one occasion does Marco Polo report that his father and uncle helped Kublai Khan to take the city of Xiangyang, which had been under siege for three years, as part of his war against the Song Dynasty, which ruled southern China . In their company there were two masters in the construction of throwing machines, a German and a Nestorian, and at the instigation of the Polos catapults were made according to western technology, the use of which would have led to the capture of Xiangyang. Since, according to Chinese sources, this city fell from China as early as 1273, i.e. during the absence of the Venetians, their role as described by Marco Polo in the conquest of Xiangyang is disputed in research.
In the wake of the 17-year-old Mongolian princess cook , who had been chosen as the bride for Il-Khan Arghun , the three Venetians came to Persia and after a long stay in China, despite Kublai Khan's reluctance to let them go, after a trip through the Indian Ocean finally returned to Venice in 1295.
It is not known how the older Polos spent their old age in their homeland. Niccolò Polo died before August 1300 and was buried in the monastery church of San Lorenzo. His brother Maffeo, who may have remained a bachelor, drew up his will in February 1309, so he passed away after that time, but before 1318.
literature
- Otto Emersleben : Marco Polo . Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 2002, ISBN 3-499-50473-1 .
- Marina Münkler : Marco Polo . CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-43297-2 .
- Frances Wood : Marco Polo didn't get to China . Secker & Warburg, London 1995, ISBN 3-492-03886-7 .
Remarks
- ↑ Otto Emersleben, Marco Polo , p. 16.
- ↑ Stemma of the Polo family in Henry Yule's edition of Marco Polo's book .
- ↑ Marco Polo: From Venice to China , ed. by Theodor A. Knust, 1986, ISBN 3-522-60410-5 , pp. 25 and 30.
- ^ Marina Münkler, Marco Polo , p. 29f .; 33f .; 37.
- ↑ Marco Polo, From Venice to China , ed. by Theodor A. Knust, p. 25; also Marina Münkler, Marco Polo , p. 38f.
- ↑ Marco Polo, From Venice to China , ed. by Theodor A. Knust, p. 25; see Marina Münkler, Marco Polo , p. 39ff.
- ↑ Marco Polo, From Venice to China , ed. by Theodor A. Knust, pp. 25f .; also Marina Münkler, Marco Polo , p. 41f.
- ↑ Marco Polo, From Venice to China , ed. by Theodor A. Knust, p. 26f .; also Marina Münkler, Marco Polo , p. 42f.
- ↑ Marco Polo, From Venice to China , ed. by Theodor A. Knust, pp. 27f .; on this Marina Münkler, Marco Polo , p. 43f.
- ↑ Marco Polo, From Venice to China , ed. by Theodor A. Knust, p. 28ff .; also Marina Münkler, Marco Polo , p. 44f. and 47f.
- ↑ Marco Polo, From Venice to China , ed. by Theodor A. Knust, p. 30ff .; also Marina Münkler, Marco Polo , pp. 45–49.
- ↑ Marco Polo, From Venice to China , ed. by Theodor A. Knust, p. 32f .; also Marina Münkler, Marco Polo , p. 49ff.
- ↑ Marco Polo, From Venice to China , ed. by Theodor A. Knust, pp. 225f .; on this Otto Emersleben, Marco Polo , p. 56.
- ↑ Otto Emersleben, Marco Polo , p. 16 and p. 111.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Polo, Niccolò |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Venetian merchant |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 13th Century |
| DATE OF DEATH | around 1300 |