Marco Vasco

Marco Vasco is a symbolic and imaginative section of Éloge du Monde in which Michel Serres fuses Marco Polo and Vasco da Gama into a single figure of the traveler. This hybrid name represents the meeting of East and West, land and sea, narration and navigation.

Through Marco Vasco, Serres redefines exploration as an act of exchange rather than conquest. The traveler is not a conqueror but a messenger—one who listens, observes, and tells stories. Knowledge emerges from movement, translation, and encounter, showing that the world is best understood through connections between cultures, routes, and voices.