Imagining China
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Chapter 01 · 1275–1412

Cathay Before “China”

Cathay was built from circulation before encounter.

European readers did not receive a single, stable portrait of China. They received names, itineraries, marvels, and reports of imperial power—copied, translated, illustrated, and placed on maps long after the journeys they described.

Evidence set3 objects · 1375–1410

Method noteThe chapter begins in 1275, but its surviving visual witnesses are later. Their distance from the journey is part of the evidence.

Read the evidence

The evidence sequence

How a distant place became visible

Scroll through 3 surviving objects. The image changes as the argument advances from one frame to the next.

0101 / Map
A richly coloured south-up map of East Asia from the Catalan Atlas, filled with cities, rulers, routes, animals, ships, and explanatory text.
1375East Asia in the Catalan AtlasBibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits
A richly coloured south-up map of East Asia from the Catalan Atlas, filled with cities, rulers, routes, animals, ships, and explanatory text.
1375 · East Asia in the Catalan Atlas

01 / Map

A name becomes a place

In the Catalan Atlas, East Asia is not an empty edge. Ports, rulers, animals, routes, and blocks of text make the region densely knowable. “Catayo” enters a world drawn for navigation, trade, devotion, and political curiosity.

Close readingThe sheet faces south at the top. Its apparent precision combines portolan geometry with reported and imagined interiors; the map is an argument about connection, not a neutral survey.

Open source record
The decorated opening folio of the Livre des merveilles, with a miniature of a traveller meeting a group outside a city, framed by elaborate floral borders.
circa 1410–1412 · Opening of the Livre des merveilles du monde

02 / Manuscript

A report acquires authority

More than a century after Marco Polo’s journey, his account appears inside a lavish Parisian compilation made for an elite patron. The decorated opening turns travel testimony into a collectible, courtly object.

Close readingThe image does not show Cathay. It shows how knowledge about distant places gained weight through costly materials, compilation, illumination, and ownership.

Open source record
A manuscript page showing Kublai Khan beneath a canopy carried by elephants, accompanied by mounted attendants, soldiers, and falconers.
circa 1410–1412 · Kublai Khan hunting

03 / Court

Power becomes spectacle

Kublai Khan rides beneath a canopy carried by elephants, surrounded by horses, attendants, and falcons. Scale and abundance translate distant sovereignty into a visual language a European court could recognise.

Close readingThis is not Marco Polo’s eyewitness sketch. Parisian illuminators pictured Mongol rule generations later, using familiar conventions to make an unfamiliar empire legible.

Open source record

Counter-reading

Read the distance, not just the detail

These objects reveal what Cathay could mean in Europe. They do not provide an unmediated view of Yuan China.

  1. 01Later copies preserve a journey while also rewriting its emphasis.
  2. 02Familiar European visual conventions shape how foreign power appears.
  3. 03“Cathay” names a moving geography, not a timeless national identity.

Evidence register

Sources in this chapter

  1. 01East Asia in the Catalan AtlasAbraham Cresques or his workshop1375Mapped and connected world
  2. 02Opening of the Livre des merveilles du mondeParisian illuminators working for John the Fearlesscirca 1410–1412Authority through compilation
  3. 03Kublai Khan huntingParisian illuminator of BnF Français 2810circa 1410–1412Imperial power as spectacle