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50 free Marco Polo trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Marco Polo trivia quiz follows the Venetian merchant's son from the lagoon to the court of the Great Khan and back. The easy questions cover the basics: the city he came from, the ruler he served, the road he travelled, the book he dictated in prison, the swimming-pool game and the pasta story that is not true. From there it moves through his father and uncle's first journey, the 15-year-old who met his father for the first time, the pope-shaped delay, the sacred oil from Jerusalem, the 17 years in China and the princess he escorted to Persia. The harder end covers the nickname Milione, the trebuchet-armed galley, the cellmate who wrote Arthurian romances, the 150 surviving manuscripts, the Dominican Latin translation, the comet he described to Pietro d'Abano, the daughters and the Tartar servant in his will, the things he never mentioned (tea, chopsticks, the Great Wall) and why modern scholars think he went to China after all, from paper money to salt revenues to a Chinese courtier called Boluo. Every answer was checked against Marco Polo's encyclopaedia entry before publishing and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Silk Road and Genghis Khan quizzes are natural companions.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Marco Polo was a merchant and explorer from which city?
Venice
Theories that he was born on Korčula or in Constantinople have not won acceptance.
Q 02Which Mongol ruler's court received the Polos in China?
Kublai Khan
He was the founder of the Yuan dynasty and, impressed by Marco's intelligence, made him a foreign emissary.
Q 03How many years did the Polos spend away from home on the journey that began in 1271?
24
They travelled almost 15,000 miles and came home in 1295 with their fortune converted into gemstones.
Q 04How old was Marco when his father Niccolò came home around 1269 and met him for the first time?
15
Niccolò had left his wife pregnant; she died while he was away and an aunt and uncle raised the boy.
Q 05What was the name of Marco Polo's uncle who travelled with him and his father?
Maffeo
Niccolò and Maffeo had already met the Great Khan on an earlier trip.
Q 06What did the nickname 'Milione' given to Marco Polo literally mean in Italian?
Million
Ramusio said Venetians gave it to him because he kept saying the Khan's wealth was counted in millions; his father had the nickname too.
Q 07How old was Marco when he, his father and uncle set out for Asia in 1271?
17
They sailed to Acre and rode camels to the Persian port of Hormuz.
Q 08The archdeacon of Acre whom the Polos met early in their journey was soon elected to what office?
Pope
Tedaldo Visconti became Gregory X after a 33-month vacancy and gave the Polos letters for the Great Khan.
Q 09How many Christians learned in the Seven Arts had the Great Khan asked the Pope to send him?
100
He also asked for oil from the lamp in Jerusalem, which the Polos duly delivered.
Q 10How many Dominican friars did the new Pope send with the Polos as his legates?
Two
Guglielmo of Tripoli and Nicola of Piacenza; the Khan had asked for a hundred learned Christians.
Q 11At which summer palace did the Polos finally reach the Great Khan?
Shangdu
Marco was about 21; the palace is the Xanadu of Coleridge's poem.
Q 12Why did the Polos travel overland rather than sail from Hormuz to China?
The ships there were not seaworthy
On the way a caravan they joined was ambushed by bandits under cover of a sandstorm.
Q 13For how many years did Marco Polo live in the Great Khan's lands?
17
He was sent on missions to what are now Myanmar, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.
Q 21In what year was Marco Polo released from Genoese captivity?
1299
He came home to a large palazzo his father and uncle had bought in the Corte del Milion.
Q 22Whom did Marco Polo marry in 1300?
Donata Badoèr
They had three daughters; a 2022 discovery added an earlier daughter, Agnese, from a previous relationship.
Q 23What did Marco Polo tell Pietro d'Abano he had seen in the sky over the South China Sea?
A star 'shaped like a sack' with a big tail
Almost certainly the comet recorded in China and Indonesia in 1293; it is not in his book.
Q 14How many languages did Marco Polo know, according to his book?
Four
He had learned little or no Latin at home, but plenty of appraising and cargo handling.
Q 15Which Mongol princess did the Polos escort to Persia on their way home around 1291?
Kököchin
She was meant for Arghun Khan, who died before she arrived, so she married his son Ghazan instead.
Q 16How many junks made up the fleet that carried the wedding party from Zaitun in 1292?
14
Of some 600 passengers, only eighteen survived the two-year voyage, including all three Polos.
Q 17How many of the roughly 600 passengers survived the sea voyage from China to Persia?
18
The route ran via Singapore and Sumatra, round the tip of India and across the Arabian Sea to Hormuz.
Q 18Which rival republic was at war with the Polos' home city when Marco returned in 1295, and captured him?
Genoa
He had armed a galley with a trebuchet; he was probably taken off the Anatolian coast in 1296, not at Curzola.
Q 19To whom did Marco Polo dictate his travels while in prison?
Rustichello da Pisa
A writer of romances, he lifted the book's opening address from an Arthurian tale he had written earlier.
Q 20In which language did Rustichello write down the original text of the book?
Franco-Venetian
The oldest surviving manuscript is Old French heavily flavoured with Italian.
Q 24Whom did Marco Polo set free in his will, leaving him 100 lire?
Peter, a Tartar servant
The servant may have come with him from Asia; the will was validated by Marco touching it.
Q 25In which Venetian church did Marco Polo ask to be buried?
San Lorenzo
He died in January 1324, though the exact day is uncertain because Venetian days ended at sunset.
Q 26According to Jacopo d'Acqui, what did Marco Polo insist on his deathbed?
That he had told only half of what he had seen
Contemporaries were sceptical of the book from the start; the Dominicans defended it.
Q 27Roughly how many early manuscript copies of Marco Polo's book survive?
About 150
They differ so much that no authoritative version can exist.
Q 28Which Dominican friar translated the book into Latin in 1302, helping it spread across Europe?
Francesco Pipino
He called Marco 'a prudent, honoured and faithful man'.
Q 29When was the first English translation of Marco Polo's book published?
1579
John Frampton's Elizabethan version was based on a Castilian translation of 1503.
Q 30The 1938 Moule and Pelliot translation used a Latin manuscript found in which cathedral's library?
Toledo
It is 50% longer than other versions.