What metaphors are used in Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino?

Marco Polo romanticizes everyday events using poetic prose. Polo uses symbolism and metaphor to describe practicalities, painting pictures for the emperor using an impressionistic paintbrush. Marco Polo's description of Zora compares the city to a musical score. Rather than saying that the city is declining, Polo notes that it has languished and deteriorated. The most important detail about Polo's descriptions is the way in which he portrays the cities as beings rather than places.