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A prelude to the Age of Discovery was a series of European expeditions crossing Eurasia by land in the late Middle Ages.[9] Although the Mongols had threatened Europe with pillage and destruction,[clarification needed] Mongol states also unified much of Eurasia and, from 1206 on, the Pax Mongolica allowed safe trade routes and communication lines stretching from the Middle East to China.[10][11] A series of Europeans took advantage of these to explore eastwards. Most were Italians, as trade between Europe and the Middle East was controlled mainly by the Maritime republics.[citation needed] The close Italian links to the Levant raised great curiosity and commercial interest in countries which lay further east.[citation needed] Christian embassies were sent as far as Karakorum during the Mongol invasions of Syria, from which they gained understanding of the world.[citation needed] The first of these travelers was Giovanni de Plano Carpini, dispatched by Pope Innocent IV to the Great Khan, who journeyed to Mongolia and back from 1241 to 1247.[10] About the same time, Russian prince Yaroslav of Vladimir, and subsequently his sons Alexander Nevsky and Andrey II of Vladimir, traveled to the Mongolian capital. Though having strong political implications, their journeys left no detailed accounts. Other travelers followed, like French André de Longjumeau and Flemish William of Rubruck, who reached China through Central Asia.[12] Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant, dictated an account of journeys throughout Asia from 1271 to 1295, describing being a guest at the Yuan Dynasty court of Kublai Khan in Travels, and it was read throughout Europe.[13] In 1291, in a first Atlantic exploration attempt, merchant brothers Vadino and Ugolino Vivaldi sailed from Genoa with two galleys but disappeared off the Moroccan coast, feeding the fears of oceanic travel.[14][15] From 1325 to 1354, a Moroccan scholar from Tangier, Ibn Battuta, journeyed from North Africa, Southern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, having reached China. After return, he dictated an account of his journeys to a scholar he met in Granada, the Rihla ("The Journey"),[16] the unheralded source on his adventures. Between 1357 and 1371 a book of supposed travels compiled by John Mandeville acquired extraordinary popularity. Despite the unreliable and often fantastical nature of its accounts it was used as a reference[17] for the East, Egypt, and the Levant in general, asserting the old belief that Jerusalem was the center of the world. Following the period of Timurid relations with Europe, in 1439 Niccolò de' Conti published an account of his travels as a Muslim merchant to India and Southeast Asia and, later in 1466–1472, Russian merchant Afanasy Nikitin of Tver travelled to India, which he described in his book A Journey Beyond the Three Seas. These overland journeys had little immediate effect. The Mongol Empire collapsed almost as quickly as it formed and soon the route to the east became more difficult and dangerous. The Black Death of the 14th century also blocked travel and trade.[18] The rise of the Ottoman Empire further limited the possibilities of European overland trade. |
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