Marco Polo [September 15, 1254 - 1324] was a world-famous traveler and merchant. He was born in Venice, Italy, in 1254 to a merchant family and a traveling family. His father Niccolo and his uncle Matteo were both Venetian merchants. Marco Polo followed his father and uncle through the Middle East at the age of 17. It took more than four years to come to China and traveled in China for 17 years. After returning to China, he published a book "Travels of Marco Polo" (also known as "Travels of Marco Polo", "Hearing and Seeing Records of the East"). The account of his experiences in China, the richest country in the East, aroused the enthusiastic yearning of Europeans for the East, and had a huge impact on the opening of new shipping routes in the future. At the same time, Western geographers also drew early "world maps" based on the descriptions in the book.

The Travels of Marco Polo is the first detailed account of Chinese history, culture, and art written by a European. Ramusio, a 16th-century Italian collector and geographer, said that Marco Polo wrote the Travels in 1299, and "a few months later, the book was everywhere in Italy" (Note: Lach, p. 35.). Before Marco Polo's death in 1324, the Travels of Marco Polo had been translated into many European languages and was widely circulated. There are 119 versions of the Travels of Marco Polo in various languages. The Travels of Marco Polo is of great significance in spreading Chinese culture and art to Europe. Maurice Collis, a scholar of Western studies of Marco Polo, believes that Marco Polo's "Travels" is not a simple travelogue, but an enlightenment work. For isolated Europeans, it is deafening, showing Europeans a new field of knowledge and vision. The significance of this book is that it led to a broad renaissance of European humanities. "

Comments: Because he started communication between China and the West, it led to many great changes in Western Europe