From a master biographer, the first truly authoritative book on Marco Polo, one of the most fascinating figures in world history.

As the first European to travel extensively throughout Asia, Marco Polo was the earliest bridge between East and West. He brought the riches and wisdom of China back to his native Italy?and in doing so, changed history. But, amazingly, there has never been an authoritative book about him in English for the general reader. Now, in this masterful work, acclaimed biographer and historian Laurence Bergreen brings Polo's incredible odyssey to life. From his origins as a scion of a wealthy merchant family in Venice to the inner sanctum of Kublai Khan's extravagant palace, here is the tale of one of history's most fascinating characters told in sumptuous detail. We first meet Polo as a callow young man, beholden to his father and uncle. We watch him grow in confidence and experience as he gains the trust of the world's most feared and reviled leader. As we see this unlikely mentorship unfold over two decades, we learn about the culture and customs of the Khan, and Polo's uncanny ability to adapt himself to them. Exceeding his mercantile ambitions, Polo became a diplomat, soldier, and even government official in this foreign land. This is also the story of Polo's collaboration with the famed writer Rustichello of Pisa, who immediately saw in Polo the story of a lifetime. A genius at observation, Polo's descriptions needed no embellishments; the result was the most popular book in Europe for the next 250 years, and the definitive text on the East until the 19th century.It was Marco Polo who dispelled the notion of non-Europeans as untutored savages, and instead described cultures more advanced than his own. The inventions he brought back with him?from pasta and paper to gunpowder and coal?set Europe on a new course and made the world as we know it.

Chapter One: The Merchants of Venice

Then all the charm
Is broken--all that phantom-world so fair
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread. . . .

She hid from her enemies amid a seductive array of islands, 118 in all. Damp, dark, cloistered, and crowded, she perched on rocks and silt. Fortifications and spectacular residences rose on foundations of pinewood piles and Istrian stone. In Marco Polo's Venice, few edifices--with the exception of one huge Byzantine basilica and other large churches--stood entirely straight; most structures seemed to rise uncertainly from the water.

Marco Polo came of age in a city of night edging toward dawn; it was opaque, secretive, and rife with transgressions and superstitions. Even those who had lived their entire lives in Venice became disoriented as they wandered down blind alleys that turned without warning from familiar to sinister. The whispers of conspiracy and the laughter of intimacy echoed through narrow passageways from invisible sources; behind dim windows, candles and torches flickered discreetly. In the evening, cobwebs of mist arose from the canals, imposing silence and isolation, obscuring the lanterns in the streets or in windows overlooking the gently heaving canals. Rats were everywhere--emerging from the canals, scurrying along the wharves and streets, gnawing at the city's fragile infrastructure, bringing the plague with them.

The narrow streets and passageways, some barely shoulder-width, took bewildering twists and turns until, without warning, they opened to the broad expanse of the Grand Canal, which divided one-half of the city from the other before running into the lagoon and, beyond that, the expanses of the Adriatic Sea.

In winter, the city hosted Carnival (literally, the playful "bidding farewell to meat" before Lent). Carnival became the occasion for orgies taking place just out of sight behind high courtyard walls and opaque curtains. Rumors of foul play ran rife amid the gaiety and sensuality of the Republic. Venetians bent on evil preferred quiet means of imposing death, such as poisoning or strangulation, and they usually got away with it.

In an uncertain world, thirteenth-century Venetians could feel certain of a few things. Two hundred years before Copernicus and three hundred before Galileo, it was an article of faith that the Sun revolved around the Earth, that the heavenly spheres were perfectly smooth, and that Creation occurred exactly 4,484 years before Rome was founded. Jerusalem was considered "the navel of the world." Entrances to Heaven and Hell existed, somewhere. The day, for most people, was subdivided into times for prayer: matins at midnight, lauds three hours later, prime at daybreak, terce at midmorning, sext at noon, none at midafternoon, vespers at sunset, and, at bedtime, compline. In the Age of Faith, science consisted largely but not entirely of spurious pursuits such as alchemy--the effort to transmute so-called base metals into gold--and astrology, which went hand in hand with astronomy.

People depended on wind, water, and animals for power. In Western Europe, coal had yet to be exploited as an energy source; paper money and the printing press also lay two hundred years in the future. The most advanced technology consisted of ships--considered a marvel of transport, though very dangerous--and devices capable of sawing wood, pressing olives, and tanning hides.

Throughout Europe, travel was exceedingly slow and hazardous. Crossing the English Channel was a dreaded undertaking; those who completed the ordeal would claim that the effort had impaired their health. Over...