The Baron in the Trees

Peppe Servillo lends his extraordinary voice to one of Italo Calvino’s most original and entertaining novels. The Baron in the Trees is the story of Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, a future baron of a noble Ligurian family who, after a fight with his parents over a plate of snails at the age of 12, climbs up a tree on the family estate and stays there for the rest of his life. Cosimo quickly proves he isn’t merely being capricious; he lives among the woods and forests, slowly creating his own ‘otherly’ world. He builds a secret hut in the fronds, inventing a new anti-conformist way of living in trees, a new lifestyle. Cosimo lives among the trees not as a misanthrope, but as a man immersed in his times, who actively participates in the lives of his community and helps his fellow citizens. The Baron in the Trees is a masterpiece from one of the most important writers of the 20th century.