Prosperous Venetian merchants Niccolò Polo and his uncle, Maffeo Polo, partners with a third brother, named Marco il vecchio (the Elder), trade with the East.
In 1252, Niccolò and Maffeo had left Venice for Constantinople, where they had resided for several years.
The two brothers had lived in the Venetian quarter of Constantinople, where they had enjoyed political privileges and tax relief because of their country's role in establishing the Latin Empire in the Fourth Crusade of 1204, but the family had judged the political situation of the city precarious, so they decided to transfer their business northeast to Soldaia, a city in Crimea, and left Constantinople in 1259. (Their decision proves wise, given Constantinople’s recapture two years later by Michael Palaeologus, the ruler of the Empire of Nicaea, who then promptly burns the Venetian quarter. Captured Venetian citizens are blinded, while many of those who manage to escape perish aboard overloaded refugee ships fleeing to other Venetian colonies in the Aegean Sea.)
As their new home on the north rim of the Black Sea, Soldaia had been frequented by Venetian traders since the twelfth century.
The Mongol army had sacked it in 1223, but the city had never been definitively conquered until 1239, when it became a part of the newly formed Mongol state known as the Golden Horde. (Today it is a popular resort, most famous for its Genoese fortress, the best preserved on the northern shore of the Black Sea.)
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