The Jewels of Dadu

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(246 242 238 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>What do we know about the wife of Henry Hudson? Mrs. ‎Magellan? La Signora Christopher Columbus? History ‎celebrates the exploits of male adventurers but tells us very ‎little about their wives who were left at home. Eva of ‎Ancona Italy challenges this narrative. Eva is the young ‎wife of 'Jacob of Ancona' a thirteenth-century merchant ‎sailor scholar and Jew who as the story goes travelled to ‎China four years before Marco Polo. ‎</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(246 242 238 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>‎</span><em style=background-color: rgba(246 242 238 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The Jewels of Dadu</em><span style=background-color: rgba(246 242 238 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> employs folklore and myth but is ‎essentially a frame tale. The frame is Eva's daily rounds ‎through the markets of medieval Ancona tending the family ‎business in Jacob's absence while navigating a lovestruck ‎rabbi and the education of a growing boy. The tales are ‎spun evenings at bedtime when armed with an old map and ‎an imagination Eva invents Jacob's voyage for their little ‎son over nearly three years or a thousand-and-one nights. ‎</span></p>