Reading Order
The Baron in the TreesCalvino Our Ancestors Trilogy Reading Order
Italo Calvino's The Baron in the Trees (1957) is the first and most beloved of his Our Ancestors trilogy — the story of Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, the twelve-year-old son of a minor Ligurian baron who refuses to eat a dish of snails at dinner, climbs a tree, and never comes down. Set in the eighteenth century, the novel follows Cosimo from his childhood rebellion through his long life in the trees — his love affairs, his reading, his friendships with bandits and philosophers, his participation in local political life, all conducted from the canopy — to his mysterious death. The Baron in the Trees is Calvino's most accessible moral fable and one of the most charming novels in Italian literature: a meditation on freedom, consistency, and the relationship between principle and life.
Where to start
The Baron in the Trees
Complete The Baron in the Trees Book List
- 1Buy
The Baron in the Trees
Italo Calvino·1957·The first Our Ancestors novel — Cosimo in the trees from age 12 to death; the most accessible and charming of Calvino's fables - 2Buy
The Cloven Viscount
Italo Calvino·1952·The first-written of the Our Ancestors trilogy — a viscount split in two by a cannon ball, one half good and one half evil; shorter than The Baron and the most purely comic of the three - 3Buy
The Nonexistent Knight
Italo Calvino·1959·The third Our Ancestors novel — a knight who exists entirely as an empty suit of armor animated by pure will; the most philosophical of the trilogy and the most interesting counterpart to The Baron in its meditation on the relationship between identity and action - 4Buy
Invisible Cities
Italo Calvino·1972·The companion in Calvino's most transcendent mode — Marco Polo's dialogue with Kublai Khan; for readers who want to go from the accessible narrative charm of The Baron in the Trees to Calvino's more purely meditative fiction
The Baron in the Trees — Frequently Asked Questions
Should I read the Our Ancestors trilogy in order?
The three novels are loosely connected by theme — they are all about extreme conditions of existence — but they are set in different times and places and have no shared characters. They can be read in any order. The Baron in the Trees is the most accessible entry point; The Cloven Viscount is the shortest; The Nonexistent Knight is the most philosophically developed.
What is The Baron in the Trees about?
The Baron in the Trees follows Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò from his decision at age twelve to climb a tree and never come down, through his entire life in the Ligurian forest canopy in the eighteenth century. The novel is simultaneously a comic adventure, a love story, a philosophical meditation on freedom and consistency, and an Enlightenment fable about the relationship between principle and life.
Is The Baron in the Trees for children?
Not exactly — it reads quickly and accessibly, and children do enjoy it, but its concerns are adult. The novel is a philosophical fable about the relationship between an absolute principle (never coming down from the trees) and the full complexity of a human life; and it is also a meditation on the Enlightenment and its attempt to organize life around abstract principles.
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