Marco Polo. The Road of Silk in the photographs of Michael Yamashita

The MAO in collaboration with National Geographic Italy inaugurates a new large exhibition space with a photo exhibition dedicated to Marco Polo by Michael Yamashita, one of the best authors of National Geographic.
76 large format images, built in four years, tells the epic journey that brought Marco Polo at the discovery of the far East, a trip that Yamashita wanted to go over to celebrate the great venture of the traveler.
In exhibition a travel reportage divided in 3 geographical sections: from Venice to China, staying in the East, and return by sea. Alongside the images, some video documentaries, including the list of the 20 best documentaries of National Geographic Channel the last ten years, tell the experience of Yamashita along the Silk Road.
It is 1271 when Marco Polo left Venice to accompany his father and uncle in one of the trips that will remain forever in the memory of the people. Thousands of miles along the ancient route of the Silk Road, to reach the East through the Holy Land, Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, the Gobi desert, until Cathay in northern China, at the court of the Great Khan Mongols. A route made of paths, land, sea and rivers, through which the caravans of merchants and travelers moved from Asia to the empire of Rome for more than a millennium, in a trade continuously. With those caravans, as well as valuable goods or unknown, traveling cultures, customs and religions of different peoples in continuous contamination between them.

Michael Yamashita, Japanese-American photographer, was put on the trail of the great Venetian re-walking across the travel, from Venice to the Middle East, along the Silk Road until the return along the coasts of Indonesia and India. The result is a rich reportage shots, which offer the public a privileged window on a world as vast as the rich variety of cultures, religions, history and nature.

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