In the Footsteps of Marco Polo, A Return to Venice Production

Why We Did It

In one of the most fortuitous incarcerations in history, the year 1297, found Marco Polo in a Genoese prison with perhaps the worlds’ first ghostwriter, a certain Rusticello of Pisa. Together in their cell, they wrote a book.

“For what is most important about Marco Polo is not that he visited the Far East; many merchants and missionaries of the later Middle Ages did that. It is that, in writing about what he had found there, he produced one of the most influential books of the Middle Ages.”

In fact “A description of the world” has never been out of print and has inspired explorers ever since. As learned Polo scholar John Larner has noted, “It is no exaggeration to say that never before or since has one man given such an immense body of new geographical knowledge to the West. For this he could justly be thought of as foremost in creating that intellectual climate in which European exploration of the non-European world developed.”

Christopher Columbus treasured his well-worn copy of Marco’s book, even jotting notes in its margins when he stumbled into the Caribbean islands. Thinking he was in Polo’s “Lesser India,” the Indonesian archipelago, he infamously named the inhabitants “Indians.”

We studied every version in print of “The Travels of Marco Polo” as it’s also known and the book became our bible. We researched the route, charted maps and read everything we could find about the journey and the countries we’d visit. Who else had traveled in his footsteps? How far did they go? Why did they fail? We consulted scholars of Medieval Chinese and European history and attended lectures at the Asia Society, N.Y.U. and Columbia.

We came to realize that no one has ever been successful retracing Polo’s entire route. There have been numerous attempts, but all have fallen short. One guy published a book and never even got into China! No one has been able to do the whole journey, from village to village and city to city in a linear fashion.

Not one team has been able to seek out and find the things that have changed since he was there and compare it to what remains the same, let alone document Polo’s words on film. Now we understood, it was our duty to be the first.

Denis Belliveau

Denis’ photographic career has taken him to over 60 countries where he has amassed a wealth of mesmerizing images. His work has been published in numerous magazines, periodicals and books, including Photographic Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine and most recently the B.B.C. documentary series “Planet Earth” which aired on the Discovery Channel. He is the receiver of the Gallery Award, Eastman Kodak’s highest honor for a professional photographer.

Denis is employed as Director of Photography and senior cameraman for the award winning P.B.S. television Series, “Real Moms, Real Stories, Real Savvy.”

He lives in NYC with his wife Lisa and sons Jake and Cary James and is currently working on his next documentary.

Francis O’Donnell

After a tour of duty in the Marines, Fran attended college at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan majoring in advertising and media arts but later switching to sculpture. Following his passion for fine arts he trained under world renowned sculptor Joel Perlman. Part of a team of architects, artists and engineers that restored and expanded a rare masterpiece by legendary Bauhaus architect Mies Van Der Rohe, his work has been exhibited in various shows around the city.

Over the past 20 years his love of art and history has taken him to the four corners of the world, participating in numerous expeditions and archeological digs. Today, when not found mentoring to high school students or lecturing on his travels,’ Fran could be found in his studio working on his next project.

Buddies since their college days at the School of Visual Arts, Denis and Francis’ friendship survived the journey. Both members of the Explorers Club, they still travel together sometimes.