‘The Travels of Marco Polo’ (version by Giovanni Battista Ramusio of 1559) has been translated into Mongolian. The work, known in Italian as ‘Il Milione’, containing a collection of travel manuscripts by the famous Venetian has been translated from the original Italian by Prof. Dr. Elisabetta Ragagnin and G.Bat-Uchral under the auspices of the Centre for Mongol Studies of the National University of Mongolia (NUM).

An academic of the NUM Department of European Studies, noted that a version of ‘Il Milione’ was translated into Mongolian in 1987, but not from the original. This earlier version was translated from a Russian rendering of a French version of the Italian. Now we have a direct translation into Mongolian of the original.

Marco Polo, was an Italian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. He spent seventeen years in the empire of Khubilai Khaan (1272-1289), writing about his experiences and his travels through Asia, keeping records of the livelihoods, customs and religious beliefs of the people he met.