Marco Polo travelled with his father Niccolò and uncle Maffeo from Venice through the eastern Mediterranean, Iran, Central Asia, and the Mongol-ruled Silk Road networks to Kublai Khan’s court. Years later, the Polos accompanied Kököchin’s maritime escort from China toward Persia and continued home to Venice.
The Moroccan jurist Ibn Battuta left Tangier for the pilgrimage to Mecca and continued through interconnected scholarly, courtly, pilgrimage, and commercial networks across Africa and Eurasia. His journeys took him through the Middle East, East Africa, Central and South Asia, the Maldives, Southeast Asia, and China before later travels in al-Andalus and the Mali Empire.
Sources and further reading
Polo, Marco, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Treccani. Detailed critical biography supporting the maritime return through Champa, Malacca, Sumatra, Sri Lanka, India, Hormuz, Trebizond, and Constantinople.
The Travels of Marco Polo in the Land of Buddhism, UNESCO Silk Roads Programme. Study of Marco Polo’s accounts of Sri Lanka and the convoy’s extended stop in Sumatra, with attention to the difference between direct travel and reported material.
The Travels of Ibn Battuta, Office of Resources for International and Area Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Phase-by-phase chronology and teaching reconstruction based substantially on Ross Dunn’s historical study of the journeys.
Ebn Battuta, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Critical biography and itinerary analysis identifying inconsistent dates, borrowed material, disputed movements, Iranian journeys, Central Asian route, India, and the contested China narrative.