The Baron in the trees
© Ivan Cangelosi, 2019
168X120 cm
Ink on paper
Technique – Handwriting of the whole novel “The Baron in the trees” of Italo Calvino – Italian
About the novel – written in 1957 by the Italian writer Italo Calvino, this novel is the second chapter of the trilogy “Our ancestors,” along with “The Cloven Viscount” and “The Nonexistent Knight.”
Cosimo Piovasco Rondo is the young protagonist of the story. Son of a noble family of Liguria, at the age of 12, after an argument with their parents for a plate of snails that the boy refuses to eat, he leaves the house and climbs a tree in the garden, swearing that for the rest of his life he would never put a foot on the ground again. And in fact he will keep his promise. He will spend his whole life jumping from tree to tree. He makes several acquaintances, becoming also friend of the gunman “Gian de Brughi”, and he devotes himself to the study of philosophy.
Although he gets old and tired by the years spent on the trees, Cosimo does not give up and does not get down to the ground, respecting his promise to the last. By the passage of a hot-air balloon, he grabs a rope hanging down from the balloon and disappears over the horizon.
Description of the painting – In this painting, Cosimo sitting on a sturdy branch of a tree, absorbed in reading a book.