1. Venetian Merchant Tales: What Can be Found Concerning European Thoughts of the East Before De Gama from the Stories of Marco Polo and Niccoló di Conti By Michael J. Gilbert

2. OUR TRAVELERS MARCO POLO (1254-1324) Traveled in the East from 1269-93. NICCOLÓ di CONTI (1385-1469) In East from 1419-39. Did not make it back home until 1444 THEIR AUTHORS RUSTICHELLO de PISA (13 th century) - Description of the World or The Million or The Travels of Marco Polo (c.1299) Original manuscript unknown. To date, 140 known Polo MSS. Poggio of Florence (1380-1459) - On the Vicissitudes of Fortune (1448) Pero Tafur (1410-1487) – The Travels of Pero Tafur (c.1454) unpublished until 1874

3. MAIN POINTS Formulaic descriptions 1.Descriptions of trade goods empathized. 2.Stories of awe. 3.Religious differences. Reception of these tales 1.Disbelief of Polo. 2.Relative obscurity of di Conti’s story. 3.The presence of tall tales in di Conti’s story based on legend and hearsay. 4.The Far East remains mysterious to scholars long after both travelers are gone.

4. CONCLUSION: Outside of some cartographic advances, it appears that not much had changed in the 124 years between our travelers in regard to how Europeans viewed the Far East.