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Admin moved page Are the travels of Marco Polo fact or fiction? to Are the travels of Marco Polo fact or fiction
====Omissions and exaggerations====
[[File: Marco Polo three.jpg|200px|thumb|left|A portrait of Kublai Khan]]
The Travels of Marco Polo has always divided audiences. Many have treated the book as a work of fiction. There are those who believe that it does give a flawed account of East Asia. Those who are skeptical of the narrative point to the many omissions .<ref> Wood, Frances. "Did Marco Polo Go to China?." Asian Affairs 27, no. 3 (1996): 296-304 </ref>. This has led some to suggest that he only visited the Chinese capital, or only repeated stories he heard from others.
There is, in fact, no mention of the Great Wall of China, which traverses a large part of the north of that vast country. Then while he makes references to many place names, modern scholars have not been able to identify them. Then he failed to mention many customs of the Chinese and Mongols, that would have seemed novel and noteworthy to a European traveler, such as footbinding.<ref> Wood, p 298</ref>
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====Rustichello and the travels of Marco Polo====
Many believed that Rustichello embellished the travelogue of the Venetian and his adventures. He was a writer who specialized in Romances and fabulous tales and was best known for his popular stories on King Arthur and Camelot. The Travels of Marco Polo has many of the stylistic characteristics of the Pisan writer’s earlier works. There are some references to marvels and fabulous stories in the narrative of the Italian. There are notorious descriptions in the book of men with the heads of dogs.
