[AStrangeMorrow]

Yeah it is easy to imagine the past as a set of very disconnected cultures when they were not. I remember hearing about people like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_da_Pian_del_Carpine

He was a medieval Italian diplomat. And seems like when he was at the court of the Khan, we was trying to make a push of Catholicism and was getting into debates with other theologians, including one from a Islamic country and one from the Byzantine empire.

A bit later in the medieval times, you have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Rubruck who was an envoy from the court of France (Louis XIV) to the Khan. Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_de_Longjumeau (from France too)

Marco Polo is the most well know but far from the first one