Forget the swimming pool game and the myth about pasta. This episode pieces together the true story of the Venetian merchant who first met his father at 15, set off along the Silk Road at 17, and spent 17 years in the service of Kublai Khan. We cover the long papal vacancy that stranded the Polos in Acre, an ambush in a sandstorm, and the reasons a Mongol emperor might trust a foreign outsider with no local ties.

Next comes the escape: a two-year voyage escorting Princess Kokachin that only 18 of 600 passengers survived, the Polos’ return to Venice in 1295, and Marco’s capture by the Genoese. In a Genoese prison cell he dictated his travels to Rustichello da Pisa, a writer of Arthurian romances. We weigh the skeptics’ case, including the missing Great Wall, against evidence such as his detailed accounts of salt monopolies and paper money, and trace how his book ended up in Christopher Columbus’s hands.

• Why Kublai Khan asked for 100 scholars and holy oil, and why Marco’s foreign status made him a valuable emissary
• The Bolo arrest record and the debate over Marco’s claimed governorship of Yangzhou
• The disastrous maritime convoy from China to Hormuz and the return to Venice after 24 years away
• How Rustichello da Pisa turned dry merchant intelligence into a medieval bestseller
• The evidence for and against Marco’s travels, his deathbed refusal to recant, and his influence on maps and on Columbus