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The Travels of Marco Polo

13th-century travelogue

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 25, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

The Travels of Marco Polo, also known as The Book of the Marvels of the World and by its Italian name Il Milione, is a 13th-century travelogue written down by Rustichello da Pisa from stories told by the Venetian explorer Marco Polo. It describes Polo's travels through Asia between 1271 and 1295, and his experiences at the court of Kublai Khan.

Editorial summary

“The Travels of Marco Polo” enters the record as 13th-century travelogue. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Travels, Marco and Polo can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1271, 1295—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Travels, Marco and Polo.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“The Travels of Marco Polo” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Travels, Marco and Polo provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1271 and 1295.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Travels of Marco Polo”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Travels of Marco Polo primary sources, The Travels of Marco Polo archive and Travels research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Travels of Marco Polo”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Travels of Marco Polo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.