The Baron in the Trees

First published in Italian in 1957, Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees begins with an act of youthful defiance that becomes a lifelong adventure. In eighteenth-century Liguria, twelve-year-old Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò quarrels with his family over a meal and climbs into the trees, resolving never to set foot on the ground again. From his leafy refuge, he discovers an unexpected freedom, forming friendships, pursuing love and engaging with the intellectual and political currents of his age, all while observing human society from a revealing distance. Narrated by his younger brother Biagio, Cosimo’s extraordinary life unfolds as a fable in which the impossible is treated with disarming matter-of-factness.

Blending the spirit of the Enlightenment with the playfulness of philosophical fantasy, Calvino explores independence, civic responsibility and the delicate balance between solitude and participation in the world. Cosimo’s refusal to conform is neither simple escapism nor complete withdrawal: his elevated perspective allows him to question convention while remaining deeply involved in the lives of others. The novel is the second part of Calvino’s celebrated Our Ancestors trilogy, alongside The Cloven Viscount and The Nonexistent Knight, in which fantastic premises illuminate the contradictions of modern life. Elegant, witty and quietly radical, it offers a lasting reflection on how to live freely without turning away from humanity.

From the book

“He looked at the world from the trees: every perspective was different from the one on the ground.”

— Italo Calvino, The Baron in the Trees