In the absence of the enemy, they dropped anchor off the coast of Curzola, four hundred miles southeast of Venice. The ships met with no significant resistance as they sailed past cities and castles under nominal Venetian control. Finally, Admiral Doria could wait no more, and he ordered his fleet north, into the Gulf of Venice. The Venetians refused the bait, and the forces of Genoa had to content themselves with random local skirmishes. Pursued a wait-and-see strategy, hiding behind islands, then sailing into warmer waters close to Tunisia, hoping to lure the impatient Venetians into his grasp. THE IMMENSE Genoese fleet, eighty-eight ships in all, sailed under the confident command of newly appointed admiral Lamba Doria, who Under the leadership of daring naval commanders, sleek Venetian galleys pursued the Genoese wherever they went, setting the stage for the Battle of Curzola, named for an island along the craggy Dalmatian coast, claimed by both of these arrogant city-states in their incessant maritime trade wars.

In 1296, in Constantinople, the Genoese massacred their rivals, acquiring a reputation for cruelty and rapacity. The following year, the Genoese again demonstrated dominance of the high seas by sinking the principal Venetian trading fleet, and when they ran out of targets on the water, they pursued the Venetians on land. When the Venetians attacked, the floating fortress shattered the would-be invaders and put them to flight. In 1294, the Genoese had won a naval action by lashing their vessels together in an enormous square. Crafty and bold, Genoa usually enjoyed the upper hand in their bloody contests. Despite formal truces, these two adversaries had been doing battle for decades, vying for lucrative trade routes to the East. IN THE SUMMER OF 1298, Genoa’s navy, one of the most powerful in Europe, gathered forces for an assault on the fleet of the Most Serene Republic of Venice. Kaidu, one of Kublai’s cousins ’Phags-pa, Tibetan Buddhist monk who devised a uniform Mongol script Bayan Hundred Eyes, Kublai Khan’s trusted general

It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.” “…And I hear, from your voice, the invisible reasons which make cities live, through which perhaps, once dead, they will come to life again.” -Italo Calvino, Invisible CitiesĭRAMATIS PERSONAE WEST Marco Polo, Venetian merchant Niccolò Polo, Marco’s father Maffeo Polo, Marco’s uncle Teobaldo of Piacenza, papal legate later Pope Gregory X Rustichello of Pisa, Marco’s cell mate in Genoa and coauthor EAST Genghis (or Chinggis) Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire Ögödei Khan, Genghis’s son and successor Kublai Khan, one of Genghis’s grandsons the Great Khan of the Mongols Möngke Khan, one of Genghis’s grandsons Sorghaghtani Beki, mother of Möngke, Hülegü, and Kublai Chabi, Kublai’s principal wife, a Buddhist Ahmad, Kublai’s Muslim minister of finance Nayan, Kublai’s Christian rival Arigh Bökh, younger brother of Kublai Khan

The description of the world to which you lend a benevolent ear is one thing the description that will go the rounds of the groups of stevedores and gondoliers on the street outside my house the day of my return is another and yet another, that which I might dictate late in life, if I were taken prisoner by Genoese pirates and put in irons in the same cell with a writer of adventure stories. Kublai asks Marco, “When you return to the West, will you repeat to your people the same tales you tell me?” “I speak and speak,” Marco says, “but the listener retains only the words he is expecting.

CONTENTS Title Page Dedication Epigraph Dramatis Personae Prologue: The Commanderġ The Merchants of Venice 2 The Golden Passport 3 The Apprentice 4 The Opium Eater 5 High Plains Drifters 6 The Secret History of the Mongols Photo Insert 1 BOOK TWO 7 The Universal EmperorĨ In the Service of the Khan 9 The Struggle for Survival 10 The General and the Queen Photo Insert 2 11 The City of Heaven 12 The Divine Wind BOOK THREE 13 The Seeker Photo Insert 3 14 The Mongol Princess 15 The Prodigal SonĮpilogue: The Storyteller Acknowledgments Notes on Sources Select Bibliography A Note About the Author Also by Laurence Bergreen Copyright

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