Today, I’ll be talking about the Fourth Crusade, a massive military misadventure by most measurements and an unpleasant confirmation of all the people of Constantinople had grown to suspect of their Latin Christian visitors. It would never reach its stated goal of Ayyubid Egypt, but it would have serious consequences, not the least of which was the hastened demise of the Byzantine Empire.
Marco and the Polos 7: Marco Polo Comes Home
Marco and the Polos 1: From Venice to the World
If you look at the title of this episode, you’ll see I’m starting a new series, focusing on the travels of Marco Polo, but we’re not starting from scratch here. The previous run of 7 episodes, To See the Mongols, led up to this point, tracing exchanges between Mongols and Western Europeans and wrapping up by looking at the rise of Kublai Khan. So if you haven’t listened to those yet, they do give a lot of good background and context for this series and you may want to hear them first.
Today, we won’t be seeing much of Marco himself, just a glimpse of him at the end. Instead, we’re going to set the scene with a look at his city of Venice and its role in Mediterranean competition and Eurasian trade; and we’re going to look at the first Polos’ meeting with Kublai Khan, that of Niccolo and Maffeo. This is the prelude.