In Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, a fictionalised version of the famous 12th century merchant Marco Polo speaks with Kublai Khan about various cities along the Silk Roads. Khan is naturally curious about his vast, seemingly endless (and endlessly diverse) empire, and Marco Polo is only too keen to share stories about the various cities he has supposedly seen in his travels.
Supposedly, because the accounts Marco Polo gives aren’t always realistic: some cities float, others are impossibly extravagant. The great emperor loves listening to him regardless, because with each city he describes, Marco Polo reveals some fundamental truth – not about a specific place, but about human nature.
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