El barón rampante

When he was twelve years old, Cosimo Piovasco, Baron of Rondò, in an act of rebellion against the rigid family discipline, climbed an oak tree in the garden of his father's house. That same day, June 15, 1767, he met the daughter of the Marquises of Ondarivia and announced to her her intention to never come down from the trees. From then until the end of his life, Cosimo remains faithful to that principle, never abandoning that necessary distance that allows him to be inside and outside of things at the same time. In this splendid work, an authentic adventure novel overflowing with poetic and fantastic humor, Calvino faces what, as he himself declared, is his true narrative theme: "A person voluntarily sets a difficult rule for himself and follows it to its ultimate consequences, since without it he would not be himself, neither for himself nor for others".