Other Franciscans followed these, and one of them, John of Montecorvino, settled at Khanbalig (imperial city), or Pekin, as Archbishop (ob. 1358); while Friar Odoric of Pordenone, near Friuli, travelled in India and China between 1316 and 1330, and brought back an account of his voyage, filled with most marvellous mendacities, most of which were taken over bodily into the work attributed to Sir John Maundeville.

The information brought back by these wandering friars fades, however, into insignificance before the extensive and accurate knowledge of almost the whole of Eastern Asia brought back to Europe by Marco Polo, a Venetian, who spent eighteen years of his life in the East.  His travels form an epoch in the history of geographical discovery only second to the voyages of Columbus.

In 1260, two of his uncles, named Nicolo and Maffeo Polo, started from Constaninople on a trading venture to the Crimea, after which they were led to visit Bokhara, and thence on to the court of the Great Khan, Kublai, who received them very graciously, and being impressed with the desirability of introducing Western civilisation into the new Mongolian empire, he entrusted them with a message to the Pope, demanding one hundred wise men of the West to teach the Mongolians the Christian religion and Western arts.  The two brothers returned to their native place, Venice, in 1269, but found no Pope to comply with the Great Khan’s request; for Clement IV. had died the year before, and his successor had not yet been appointed.  They waited about for a couple of years till Gregory X. was elected, but he only meagrely responded to the Great Khan’s demands, and instructed two Dominicans to accompany the Polos, who on this occasion took with them their young nephew Marco, a lad of seventeen.  They started in November 1271, but soon lost the company of the Dominicans, who lost heart and went back.

They went first to Ormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, then struck northward through Khorasan Balkh to the Oxus, and thence on to the Plateau of Pomir.  Thence they passed the Great Desert of Gobi, and at last reached Kublai in May 1275, at his summer residence in Kaipingfu.  Notwithstanding that they had not carried out his request, the Khan received them in a friendly manner, and was especially taken by Marco, whom he took into his own service; and quite recently a record has been found in the Chinese annals, stating that in the year 1277 a certain Polo was nominated a Second-Class Commissioner of the PrivyCouncil.  His duty was to travel on various missions to Eastern Tibet, to Cochin China, and even to India.  The Polos amassed much wealth owing to the Khan’s favour, but found him very unwilling to let them return to Europe.  Marco Polo held several important posts; for three years he was Governor of the great city of Yanchau, and it seemed likely that he would die in the service of Kublai Khan.