The success of the World Tour of “Marco Polo, Man and Myth” was the spectacular result of the collaboration between Italian partners CP and Expona with leading museums of Italy, the Musei Civici of Venice and the Museo Nazionale di Arte Orientale of Rome and other public and private lenders of Italy.
This highly visual, entertaining exhibition was hinged to the incredible journey of Marco Polo, but goes beyond a tale of the Silk Road and examines the impact of the legend. Marco Polo was the most famous Westerner to travel the Silk Road, going farther than any predecessor, passing through Armenia, Persia, Afghanistan and over the Pamirs, beyond Mongolia and throughout China. He returned by sea, skirting the coast of Southeast Asia and India, the Straits of Hormuz and on to Constantinople before returning home to Venice in the winter of 1295.
Exceptional loans of original objects were arranged with the Fondazione Musei Civici Veneziani, the Museo Nazionale di Arte Orientale ‘Giuseppe Tucci’ of Rome and other public and private lenders in Italy. Artworks, portraits, ceramics, coins, maps, models, and specimens of the natural world, revealed various cultural influences and customs.
From 2012 to 2014 the exhibition travelled to: Germany, Finland, Austria, the USA, Puerto Rico.