私醫聯招 英文歷屆試題｜第 436 題

Marco Polo undertook the journey to the Far East when he was only 15 years old. He traveled with his father and uncle, and after the trip was over he completed a book about what he had seen. It was full of information about the cultures and geography of the Asian lands he had visited this remote part of the world before, Polo's reports were unparalleled in their level of excitement and detail.

Polo arrived home in Venice in 1295. Then, three years later, he was called to fight in a war between the cities of Venice and Genoa and had the misfortune to be taken and held by the Genoan side. While waiting to be freed, he met a writer named Rustichello da Pisa who greatly admired the stories Polo told him. Rustichello da Pisa wrote them down in the form of a book that was published and called The Description of the World or The Travels of Marco Polo. It became very popular and was much admired by many people. However, some people did not believe it was true and said it should be called The Million Lies. Despite this, the book contributed greatly to an increased interest in the Far East.

Christopher Columbus knew about the travels of Marco Polo when he first sailed westward with the objective of finding a new route to the Eastern lands in 1492. In fact, one writer at the time claimed that Columbus had read and studied the book prior to asking Portugal to finance his voyage. However, he may have got the information through word of mouth. A library in Seville has a copy of Polo's book that was owned by Columbus. It has notes written in it, possibly by Columbus himself. However, these notes appear to have been written only after Columbus's third trip to the Americas, so did he read Polo's book before 1492, or didn't he? It's up to future researchers to try to discover the answer.