Brief Biography: Marco Polo, the son of a Venetian trader, was probably born in 1254 in Venice. Taking Marco along with them, his uncle and father began a second journey to China in 1271. According to the Prologue of Description of the World, the Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan, had directed the brothers to bring back with them oil from the lamp that burned about the sepulchre of God in Jerusalem. Therefore they went from Acre to Jerusalem to obtain such oil before making their return trip. After reaching China, Marco Polo entered the service of Kublai Khan and remained in China until 1292. On his return, Marco appears to have engaged in a sea battle on the side of the Venetians against the Genoise who captured him and put him in prison. While in prison he apparently told Rustichello of Pisa, a noted writer of romances, his tale. Rustichello then wrote and helped circulate Marco's Description of the World. On his death in 1324, he left his three daughters a substantial fortune.
Brief Itinerary: Marco Polo's route led from Acre (modern-day 'Akron, Israel) to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem back to Acre. From there he went overland to Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf; northward through Iran to the Oxus River (present-day Amu-Darpa) in central Asia; up the Oxus to the Pamir and across the Pamir to the Lob Nor region of Sinking Province (present-day Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region) in China; and finally across the Gobi Desert to the court of Kublai Khan, then at Shangdu, China, which he reached in 1275. On the return trip undertaken in 1292, Marco escorted a Mongol princess to Iran. Traveling by sea, he reached that country by way of Sumatra, south India, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf. He then proceeded overland past Tabriz in northwest Iran, along the east coast of the Black Sea past Constantinople, and in 1295 arrived home in Venice in 1295.