The next three blogs are about rather stunning elements of history that virtually none of my readers know about.
Did Diderot create the first encyclopedia? Absolutely not. The Chinese have been creating encyclopedias for roughly 2,000 years. It is part of running a large country with a complex bureaucracy.
I saw my first Chinese encyclopedia from the 15th Century on a visit to the Library of Congress in 1983. 
The Library has about 14 volumes of an original 27 volume Chinese encyclopedia.
The subjects (in Chinese of course) cover the geography of country, with detailed town maps and names of prominent structures. It also includes descriptions (with illustrations) of all manufacturing and technology of the period with local extraction sources and details. Just like Diderot's. An original Diderot is in the Library of Congress too.
Now you won't be surprised to learn that there was over a century of contact between Europe, China and other Asian countries at the time of Marco Polo's (and his father's) travels.