Comparing The Travels Of Matteo Ricci And Marco Polo

The Early Modern World was an age of discovery for the continent in many aspects, from physical discovery of new continents to the discovery of novel ideas for the people and nations of Europe. One place that had always been a curiosity for the Europeans was the land of silk: China. Europeans had known about China since antiquity, and several European successfully traveled to the eastern wonder but did not return to write of their experiences in China for Europe to read. Two Italian and Catholic individuals successfully traveled to China and wrote about their adventures and experiences in China: Marco Polo and Matteo Ricci. Marco Polo, the first of the two men, wrote The Travels of Marco Polo which published circa 1300. While Matteo Ricci’s
Marco Polo was born in 1254 in the Italian city-state of Venice. He was born into a merchant family where he learned his mercantile trade from his father and uncle, who had already traveled to China via the Silk Road, where he would eventually travel to China under the rule of the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty with Kublai Khan, grandson of Genesis Khan, as emperor. Europe was at its point in history where it had little hard knowledge of the Far East, and where works such as The Travels of John Mandeville dominated how many Europeans perceived Asia and its inhabitants. The Travels of Marco Polo are in the same genre as the travels of John Mandeville as it is classified as medieval travel literature. This travel literature evolved from focusing on pilgrimage and holy sites for Christians, and it works where other cultures took priority of the work. This was also a time before the age of colonialism and the opening of the Americas from the voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492, so the worldview of Europeans was overall
With the final section of the book was a short chapter entitled Inside the Palace, Spence built up through the entire work what the images were and how they linked to Ricci’s story in China. Spence wrote the work aa a buildup for how Ricci had the memory palace built as “He stands on the threshold of the Memory Palace…In front of him, as far as the mind can travel, stretch the gleaming walls and colonnades, the porticoes and great carved doors, behind which are stored the images born of his reading, his experience, and his faith.” The intro set up what a memory palace was, body of the work described the images, and why Ricci chose them. Then after reading the entire work, Spence gave the reader what the palace might have looked like for Ricci having done so much over the years in China. Each section jumps around both Europe and China, but focused on the particular theme of that image, as each image had a particular purpose for