For whatever reason, Marco Polo stays in, or isn't allowed to leave China, or he dies from some kind of disease/accident there. He doesn't get to dictate his Travels while in prison by the Genoese. What kind of effect would this have, if any on the age of exploration?
WI: Marco Polo stays/dies in China
- Thread starter Drunk Gracchus
- Start date
It might not have that much of an effect actually. Marco Polo's book was written off as a hoax at the time due to its lack of traditional medieval orientalist aspects such as the monstrous races or the terrestrial paradise.
Be that as it may, Columbus was heavily influenced by it. I'm sure that the New World would be discovered by the European Powers eventually, but it could throw a spanner in the works for a while.
there's actually a genuine POD that you could use for this. i'll try to find the specific note that i wrote about this, but Polo was given a significant office (i want to say it was some kind of governorship) in China according to his logs and stayed there until he started fearing that a change in leadership could turn out very badly for him so he got out of Dodge while he could.
Thing is, Marco Polo is far from being the only European in China at this point, the establishment of a Mongolian hegemony having really pushed forward transcontinental exchanges : Marco Polp's accounts (which were not an autobiography, and more of a romanced biography with a lot of fantastic elements, as @ArchimedesCircle pointed out, in order to met the public's taste) certainly represented a huge part of medieval imaginary about China, but without them, it would have still existed nevertheless.
For instance the he journey Oderic of Pordennone might be better known ITTL (although it was quite known contemporaneously IOTL along with the Historia Mongalorum) or even the quite down(-to-earth compilations of Franceso di Baltuccio : there was a general interest among traders and scholars alike on broader horizons during this period that would have been met nevertheless.
For instance the he journey Oderic of Pordennone might be better known ITTL (although it was quite known contemporaneously IOTL along with the Historia Mongalorum) or even the quite down(-to-earth compilations of Franceso di Baltuccio : there was a general interest among traders and scholars alike on broader horizons during this period that would have been met nevertheless.
Columbus was actually more influenced by the works of John Mandeville and Odoric of Pordenone. On his first voyage he actually brought a copy of Mandeville's Travels, believing he could use it as a guide book to 'Asia'.
It already was. Scandinavians would stay in Greenland until the 15th century when a conflict with the natives would finally have them expelled for good, also not returning because of temperatures dropping. They however did leave knowledge of very far away lands lying to the west not to mention how they were responsible for leaving a North Sea and Baltic Sea seafaring tradition that had connected trade with the Mediterranean since the end of the Viking Age at least.
He had a copy of both Mandeville and Marco Polo, alongside Pliny the Elder. And no, Mandeville wasn't more influential. He doesn't mention Mandeville in his diary, only Polo, and the way he speaks of the Great Khan and Cathay is straight from Polo. Not that he wasn't influenced by Mandeville, but he was far more influenced by Polo.
It's difficult to say really. Marco Polo's writings were one of the best sellers of the Middle Ages, but the Vikings had gone to the Americas without any incentive of finding India or Cathay centuries before Polo's stay in China, and there was already a tradition of unimaginable riches being found in India dating all the way back to Herodotus, who said it was the richest and most populous area of the world, and being popularised by the Alexander legend which had Alexander finding what are basically early versions of El Dorado in India or close to it.
What is true is that the exploration of the Canary Islands and their subsequent annexation by Castile started because the Vivaldi brothers, two Genoese explorers from the 1290s, decided to see if they could circumnavigate Africa and reach India, or reach India from the west, inspired by Marco Polo's writings, and instead ended up dying somewhere in the Moroccan coast. Another explorer by the name of Lancelotto Malocello went looking for them but didn't find them and decided to stay in one of the Canaries, the island that is now called Lanzarote after him. It is this that took the attention of Portugal and the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and which started the subsequent explorations of the African coast and ended in the development of the transoceanic carrack and caravel.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant discovery by the major European Kingdoms. I know that the Vikings discovered North America earlier, but it didn't really lead to anything except a small settlement in Vinland. I meant more something along the lines of the Colombian Exchange.
Pretty sure that's more a myth than anything else. Spaghetti does sound good right now though.
that's one thing that always annoys me about these debates and discussions--any real or imagined pre-Columbian contact with the Americas seems to always be used for the sole purpose of trash-talking Columbus as part of the talking point that he was one of history's greatest monsters (seriously, with all the evil acts people assign to Columbus, you may as well blame him for every war that ever took place ever post-1492 since the butterfly effect would mean those wouldn't happened if he didn't reach the Americas). regardless of what one's opinion of Columbus is, he's still one of the most important figures in history because of the opening of the Americas--not "discovery", opening--which was a major part of history from that point onwards
Well I'd like to the discussion politically neutral one way or the other. But yes, he was the more important explorer. The modern countries that exist in the New World are because of him. that's one reason why I asked the question about Marco Polo.
agreed, wholeheartedly. it's just that any discussion of Columbus seems to devolve into blaming the entire Indian Genocide on him as if he was personally responsible for every act perpetrated during it. sorry for taking the discussion off-topic--i've kinda wanted to say that for a while, is all.