Which Venetian traveled the Silk Road to Kublai Khan's court?

Marco Polo, whose account was dictated to a romance writer while both were prisoners of war in Genoa - which is one reason to read it carefully, since the ghostwriter had a professional interest in a good story.

The book's nickname in Italian was Il Milione, the million, apparently meaning the million lies. Its documented consequence is real regardless: Columbus owned a heavily annotated copy and was partly trying to reach the places it described, which means a possibly fabricated travelogue helped cause the European arrival in the Americas.