Tickets to “Marco Polo: Man & Myth” are included with museum admission, $17.50 for adults, $16.50 for students/seniors, $15.50 for children ages 3 to 12, free for ages 2 and under, free for Fernbank Members. Fernbank Museum of Natural History, 767 Clifton Road NE in Atlanta; 404-929-6300, fernbankmuseum.org, 404-929-6300, fernbankmuseum.org.
Among Saturday’s opening day activities at Fernbank’s “Marco Polo: Man & Myth” exhibition, are: A sampling of tastes of Indian and Italian cuisine; Kung Fu and Lion Dance performances; a falconry demonstration. Those activites take place from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 28.
Marco Polo made a 24-year trip along the Silk Road, crossing by land through Persia, Mongolia and China, returning by sea, and cutting a path that was longer than any other trader before him.
Or maybe he didn’t.
The mythology that grew up around Polo’s 13th century journeys, some of it encouraged by Polo himself, has made it difficult to separate fact from public relations.
During a post-return stint in a Genoa jail Polo dictated his memoirs to a fellow prisoner, and the book came to be known in Europe as “Il Milone” or the “Million Lies.” Even his contemporaries doubted his veracity. “It was like science fiction to them,” said Linda Carioni, Italian representative for an exhibit opening Saturday at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History.
What is undeniable is that Polo’s detailed (and accurate) descriptions of life in foreign lands made him the first adventure journalist and travel celebrity and helped accelerate commerce along the Silk Road.
The exhibit on his life and travels, “Marco Polo: Man & Myth,” opens with the kind of hoopla appropriate to a man who once served as an emissary for the grand Kublai Khan. There will be Italian and Indian food, a falconry exhibit, lion dances and a baby camel.
It is the travelling exhibition’s U.S. debut, and it includes 80 items from Polo’s world, such as a 9-foot model of a 13th-century slave galley and a full-size yurt. A recreation of a gilded wooden sculpture of Polo that once resided in the “Temple of 500 Genii” in Canton, China, is distinguished by its startled eyes, bowler hat and robust black beard.
Is this really a sculpted image of Marco Polo or a retrofitted Buddhist icon? Since the original temple burned, we may never know.
More certain is the provenance of a handful of items that were recovered by archaeologists in an ongoing dig at what is believed to be the Polo family residence in Venice. “This is the largest archaeological excavation that the city of Venice has ever taken on,” said Carioni, who handles international relations for the Florentine museum, Contemporanea Progetti, the exhibition organizer.
Among the items retrieved from the Polo residence, which sank underground during the intervening centuries and became the sub-basement of a theater, is a Venetian blown-glass drinking vessel, an amphora (perhaps used to transport valuable sweet wine, oil or honey) and a ceramic cup.
These objects are interspersed with Polo’s own observations of the lands he traveled through, presented in signs and through a mobile app that Fernbank visitors can download on their smartphones. Polo was part of a merchant family and was 17 when he embarked with his father and uncle for the east. The elder Polos had made trips along the Silk Road before and were returning to Mongolia at the request of Kublai Khan.
Their relationship with the Khan enriched the Polo family, but necessarily prolonged their stay, as the powerful ruler insisted that they join his court. Marco Polo apparently kept notes on his experiences and devoted much attention to the life and culture around him.
“He was really an urban anthropologist,” said Bobbi Hohmann, McClatchey curator and director of collections at Fernbank. Not just interested in commerce, Polo wrote about marriage rituals, burial customs, family structure and religious belief, Hohmann said.
On Monday Fernbank and Contemporanea Progetti personnel began uncrating objects and assembling a 17-foot yurt in Fernbank’s downstairs gallery. The accordioned wooden lattice that makes up the sides of the traditional Mongolian shelter had the appearance of a large baby gate. Sections of the lattice were held together with rope, but not just any rope. “Smell it,” said Marta Onali, of the Italian museum. “It’s horse hair.”
The yurt was a faithful reproduction of one of the Mongols’ antique dwellings, using animal hide pegs to hold together wooden slats and a felt covering made from animal hair.
Elsewhere, an empty case stood ready for the galley, a large model of an even larger slave-driven 165-foot boat that was the key to Venice’s maritime superiority.
“The next generation of explorers, lots of them had copies of Marco Polo’s book, including Columbus,” said Carioni. “It tells the power of books … That was what distinguished him (from the) other merchants and travelers along the Silk Road.”
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