The Chicago Map Society Presents Marco Polo & Sixteenth Century Exploration

This illustrated lecture discusses the ways in which Marco Polo’s book, The Description of the World, shaped expectations about the inhabitants, resources, and size of the Americas in sixteenth-century France. Polo composed his book in French in 1298, and the French nobility were among its earliest and most devoted readers. Polo’s Description was an essential reference for French cartography, cosmography, and exploration for centuries, and offers crucial insight into France’s early colonial activity.

Bio: Mark Cruse (PhD, New York University) is associate professor of French at Arizona State University. A medievalist, he has published on a wide range of topics including medieval theater, heraldry, writing tablets, the Louvre, Marco Polo, and global trade. His first monograph, Illuminating the Roman d’Alexandre (MS Bodley 264): The Manuscript as Monument (Boydell and Brewer, 2011), is a comprehensive study of one of the most famous medieval manuscripts extant. He has also published a translation of Catherine the Great’s memoirs (with Hilde Hoogenboom; Random House, 2005), and articles on Haitian literature and eighteenth-century battlefield medicine. Forthcoming in 2025 are two books: The Mongol Archive in Late Medieval France: Texts, Objects, Encounters, 1221–1422 (Cornell) and L’Iconographie de l’ Epistre Othea de Christine de Pizan (with Gabriella Parussa; Brepols). He is a member of the Institute for Advanced Study (fellowship 2013–14), and has twice been a fellow at the National Humanities Center (2017–18; 2024–25).

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All Chicago Map Society meetings are open to the public and all are welcome. To help defray expenses, non-members are asked for a small donation at the door.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Newberry Library, 60 West Walton Street, Chicago, United States

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