From Marco Polo to Sir John Mandeville: how travel writing reshapes our global perspective on art history
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Abstract
[Medieval western travelers, such as Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, were known to have a fascination with the exoticism of Islamic and Oriental cultures. For both, the presence of Islam was a foreign concept that drew striking parallels with their Christian faith. Engagement with these Western texts is still relevant to our rational readers, whether their anecdotal evidence is considered baseless. Contemporary medievalists, including Anthony Bale and Sebastian Sobecki, establish a set of theoretical frameworks that explores numerous key themes and ideas in medieval travel writing. For instance, these scholars contend that European travelers sought to explore outside, non-western worlds that transcended their preconceived notions about metaphysics.1 Polo and Mandeville’s travel narrative is, structurally, a form of expository writing that illuminates the imaginary concept of place; the two sought to emphasize the importance of “actual places” because of their “certain amount of anxiety about” the differences between “western Christians and people of other religions and cultures.”2 It is also important not to overlook the nuances of both texts: while Mandeville’s generalizations about Christianity and the Islam did not appear to be condemnatory, Polo was not hesitant to express his bigoted views concerning the cultural practices and social mores of indigenous peoples in the Middle East. This article aims to understand if Eurocentrism is still instrumental in helping us to understand the broader picture of medieval global art for art historians, students, and theorists alike. Arguably, these separate European travelogs are the constellation of memories, which prompt us to ask ourselves how one’s subconscious biases reshape our perception of the past.]