You’ve definitely seen him. The guy with the thick, dark beard, the heavy fur-lined hat, and that intense, "I’ve seen things" stare. He’s on history book covers, museum plaques, and basically every Google Image result for the world's most famous explorer. But here is the weird thing: photos of Marco Polo don't exist. Obviously. The man died in 1324, and the camera wasn't even a twinkle in Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s eye for another five centuries.
But it goes deeper than just "cameras weren't invented yet." Honestly, even the "portraits" we have are total guesswork.
The Portrait Problem: We Have No Idea What He Looked Like
If you search for an image of the man who supposedly brought pasta to Italy (spoiler: he didn't), you'll likely find a very specific painting. It’s a 16th-century piece from the gallery of Monsignor Badia in Rome. It looks official. It feels historical. It’s also completely made up.
That painting was created roughly 200 years after Marco Polo died.
Think about that for a second. That is like someone today trying to paint a photo-realistic portrait of a guy who lived during the American Revolution based only on a couple of blurry stories they heard at a bar. No one who was alive when that artist picked up a brush had ever seen Marco Polo’s face. There are no sketches from his lifetime. No death masks. No contemporary descriptions that go beyond "he was a merchant."
We have zero visual records of the man.
📖 Related: Why San Luis Valley Colorado is the Weirdest, Most Beautiful Place You’ve Never Been
Where Did the "Standard" Look Come From?
Most of the photos of Marco Polo (well, depictions) follow a trend that started in the 1500s and 1600s. Artists basically decided that since he spent two decades in the court of Kublai Khan, he should look "Eastern."
They started slapping him in Tartar robes and giving him a beard that looks suspiciously like a 19th-century philosopher's. It was a branding exercise. Europe wanted their greatest traveler to look the part.
- The Monsignor Badia Portrait: The most famous one. Inscribed with Marcus Polus venetus. Total fiction.
- The Genoa Mosaic: A beautiful piece at Palazzo Tursi. Again, created centuries later.
- The Buddhist Temple Statue: In Canton (Guangzhou), there’s a statue in the Temple of the Five Hundred Gods that locals sometimes tell tourists is Marco Polo. It’s actually a Buddhist saint (an Arhan).
It is kinda funny how we’ve collectively agreed on a "face" for a man who effectively had none in the historical record.
The Missing Chinese Records
You'd think a guy who claimed to be a high-ranking official for the Mongol Empire would show up in a drawing or a scroll somewhere in China.
He doesn't.
👉 See also: Why Palacio da Anunciada is Lisbon's Most Underrated Luxury Escape
Historians like Frances Wood have pointed out that despite the Yuan Dynasty being meticulous record-keepers, there is no mention of a "Marco Polo" in their annals. No portraits in the imperial galleries. No "foreigner with a big beard" sketches in the local government files of Yangzhou, where he claimed to be governor.
This led to the famous "Did he even go?" debate. Most modern scholars, like Hans Ulrich Vogel, argue he definitely did go, citing his incredibly accurate descriptions of salt production and paper money—things a random merchant in Venice wouldn't just guess correctly. But as for his face? The East didn't care enough to draw it, and the West was too late to the party.
Why Do We Keep Sharing These Fake Images?
Humans hate a vacuum. We need a face to go with the story. When you're scrolling through photos of Marco Polo for a school project or a travel blog, a blank grey silhouette just doesn't hit the same way as a guy in a velvet hat.
Basically, the "Marco Polo" we know is a character. He’s a mascot for the Silk Road.
Even the most "authentic" visual we have isn't a face at all—it's his will. We still have the physical parchment from 1324. It’s kept in Venice. No face, just a signature and some legal jargon about who gets his silk robes and his "golden tablet" from the Khan.
✨ Don't miss: Super 8 Fort Myers Florida: What to Honestly Expect Before You Book
What You Should Look For Instead
If you want to get as close to the "real" Marco Polo as possible, stop looking at portraits. They are fantasies. Instead, look at the Catalan Atlas of 1375.
It’s a map.
In it, there’s an illustration of a merchant caravan traveling through Central Asia. It was made only 50 years after he died. It doesn’t claim to be him, but it shows exactly how he would have dressed, the camels he would have used, and the vibe of the Silk Road. It’s the closest thing to a "candid photo" of his lifestyle that exists.
How to Spot a Fake "Historical" Photo
Next time you're looking for historical figures online, use these filters to keep yourself from being fooled by 19th-century reimagining:
- Check the Date of Creation: If the person died in 1300 and the painting is from 1550, it’s a work of fiction.
- Look at the Clothing: Is the "explorer" wearing clothes that look like they belong in a Renaissance fair? Probably a later invention.
- Reverse Image Search: Most "famous" portraits of ancient figures have a Wikipedia entry that explicitly says "Imaginary portrait of..." in the fine print.
Stop searching for a face that was never recorded. Instead, read the Travels and look at the descriptions of the cities. The "photos" of Marco Polo aren't in a frame; they're in the text he left behind.
Next Steps for the History Buff:
- Search for the "Catalan Atlas 1375" to see what the world looked like to people just after Polo's time.
- Look up the "Will of Marco Polo" at the Biblioteca Marciana—it's the only 100% confirmed physical link we have to his actual life.
- Check out Hans Ulrich Vogel's research if you want to see the proof that he actually made it to China, despite the lack of "selfies."