Primary sourceDocumentary

The Book of Ser Marco Polo, Volume 1 (LibriVox Audio Reading)

Rustichello da Pisa; Marco Polo

A modern volunteer audio reading of Henry Yule's English translation of Marco Polo's travel account.

This audio presents an English translation of Marco Polo's own dictated travel account, read by modern volunteers.

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LibriVox volunteer reading of The Book of Ser Marco Polo, Volume 1, translated by Henry Yule.

About this source

What it is

This is a LibriVox audio recording of The Book of Ser Marco Polo, Henry Yule's English translation of the travel account originally told by Marco Polo and written down by Rustichello da Pisa. The recording is a modern reading by volunteer narrators, not a recording of Polo himself.

Why it matters

Listening to this reading lets students experience the text's introduction and notes in spoken form, making Polo's story and its complicated history more accessible. It also shows how old texts continue to be reshaped for new audiences, centuries after they were written.

Look closer

Remember that this voice is a volunteer reader today, not Marco Polo himself — how does that change how you think about this source?
What does the introduction reveal about debates over Polo's life and book?
Why might modern readers choose to listen to historical texts rather than read them?

This documentary is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Marco Polo on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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