DBWI: Marco Polo's stories are only tall tales?

Marco Polo is a significant and controversial figure in both Eastern and Western histories. He was a close friend and advisor of Kublai Khan, taught the Mongols how to make the mangonel for the Siege of Xiangyang, a governor of Yangzhou for three years and maybe most famously brought pasta to Italy.

While there was significant doubts about this from his contemporaries when he returned home about his stories, he has been vindicated a thousand times over - with his name popping up again and again confirming nearly all of his stories (though there is a little poetic license here and there).

But what if Marco Polo really was just the liar many Venetians thought him to be? How would history have been changed without the presence of this remarkable man?
 
OOC: It's funny you use Marco Polo for this considering that his account was controversial because it didn't have most of the weird stuff the rest of medieval travel literature had. It's actually the most accurate European account of the east at the time and for several centuries afterwards.

It would make no difference. Prester John wasn't real either but people still went in search of him nonetheless.

OOC: Prester John was in Marco Polo's account, just posthumously. Polo wrote that Prester John had been killed and his kingdom conquered by the Mongols. So he would be real in a world where Marco Polo's account was 100% accurate.
 
OOC: It's funny you use Marco Polo for this considering that his account was controversial because it didn't have most of the weird stuff the rest of medieval travel literature had. It's actually the most accurate European account of the east at the time and for several centuries afterwards.

Ooh. Where should I look if we want some of the really weird stuff? William of Rubruck was relatively reliable, too, if I remember correctly.
 
IC: For one, I would say that we wouldn't know about the existence of a Nestorian Kingdom nestled between Persia and what is now Uzbekistan around Marco Polo's day. We would just assume the area was completely Muslim, ith maybe a few holdouts of the traditional faiths of the Altaic people.

OOC: It's funny you use Marco Polo for this considering that his account was controversial because it didn't have most of the weird stuff the rest of medieval travel literature had. It's actually the most accurate European account of the east at the time and for several centuries afterwards.
OOC: Then again, the fact that Marco Polo had created the most accurate (or at least with mostly down-to-Earth fabrications) of East Asia also means that the question "what if he was 100% truthful?" can be asked here, in the Pre-1900 section, instead of the ASB section.
 
Ooh. Where should I look if we want some of the really weird stuff? William of Rubruck was relatively reliable, too, if I remember correctly.
John Mandeville, Oderic of Pordenone, Giovanni of Marignolli, Pseudocallisthenes (alleged/attributed author of The Alexander Romance), and Herodotus (if you're looking for a classical rather than medieval view of the east).
 
OOC: Is the premise that the OTL Travels of Marco Polo exist ITTL but everything in them actually existed and happened, or that Marco Polo wrote a completely accurate account of his travels? Either would be fun premises for a DBWI but there is a difference. And either POD is equally implausible.
 
OOC: Then again, the fact that Marco Polo had created the most accurate (or at least with mostly down-to-Earth fabrications) of East Asia also means that the question "what if he was 100% truthful?" can be asked here, in the Pre-1900 section, instead of the ASB section.
Not really. "Most accurate depiction of east Asia by a medieval European writer" is still a far cry from "actually accurate". For Marco Polo's account to be accurate would still require geographic differences, a race of men with tails (his only foray into the monstrous races genre, and interestingly enough one that isn't found in other accounts), an actual huge Nestorian empire in Central Asia, and a Mongol Empire with a structure closer to the HRE than anything it actually had.
 
Not really. "Most accurate depiction of east Asia by a medieval European writer" is still a far cry from "actually accurate". For Marco Polo's account to be accurate would still require geographic differences, a race of men with tails (his only foray into the monstrous races genre, and interestingly enough one that isn't found in other accounts), an actual huge Nestorian empire in Central Asia, and a Mongol Empire with a structure closer to the HRE than anything it actually had.

I would argue that it was "mostly" accurate in that in the oldest versions Polo (like Herodotus) generally specifies when he's relaying a story and when he's relaying something he considers fact. The older versions also leave out a lot of the more fantastical elements that were added later. I also think that his confusion regarding higher level politics becomes clearer if you believe that he lied about how high a status he achieved to make himself look better upon his return. After all, nobody within 10k miles could dispute that he was the Kahn's personal friend rather than a messenger or low level court hanger-on. I would say that his story is reasonably accurate depiction of east Asia from the perspective of a foreign merchant hired by someone in the Mongol court to perform some very low level commercial activities.
 
I would argue that it was "mostly" accurate in that in the oldest versions Polo (like Herodotus) generally specifies when he's relaying a story and when he's relaying something he considers fact. The older versions also leave out a lot of the more fantastical elements that were added later. I also think that his confusion regarding higher level politics becomes clearer if you believe that he lied about how high a status he achieved to make himself look better upon his return. After all, nobody within 10k miles could dispute that he was the Kahn's personal friend rather than a messenger or low level court hanger-on. I would say that his story is reasonably accurate depiction of east Asia from the perspective of a foreign merchant hired by someone in the Mongol court to perform some very low level commercial activities.
I'm not saying they are lies. I wrote my senior thesis on this stuff, and it's less that the medieval accounts were lies and more that it was never meant to be accurate, but rather a lot of it was meant as symbolism or a way to project western ideas onto an imaginary east.
 
I'm not saying they are lies. I wrote my senior thesis on this stuff, and it's less that the medieval accounts were lies and more that it was never meant to be accurate, but rather a lot of it was meant as symbolism or a way to project western ideas onto an imaginary east.

I think that's a fair assessment. How much of that would you attribute to da Pisa taking artistic liberties with the story in order to write for a 13th c. European audience and how much would you attribute to factual inaccuracies on Polo's part (assuming he traveled to China at all)?

I think we do agree that The Travels of Marco Polo was never meant to be a travel book or totally factually accurate description of Asia. I'm just of the opinion that there's enough factual tidbits that indicate that Polo did actually travel to China in some capacity.
 
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Kaze

Banned
It would not stop Columbus from sailing East. All he had to do is say to the King of Spain is = "They have gold, silks, and spices - hire me and I will bring some home."
 
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