Rocco Capozzi 211

T H E R E T U R N O F U M B E R T O E C O .

B A U D O L I N O HOMO LUDENS: D E S C R I B I N G T H E U N K N O W N 1

Unlike the fanfare 2 that surrounded U m b e r t o Eco 's second novel ,

his mos t chal lenging and engaging essay-novel Il pendolo di

Foucault (1988; Foucault's Pendulum), or the air of suspense

that preceded the publicat ion of his third metafictional novel , L'isola del

giorno dopo (1994; The Island of the Day Before), Baudolino c ame out

- relatively speaking - with very little c lamour. The quest ion that

readers may be asking is whether this novel will also go out with a

"whimper" , or whether it will go out with a "bang" , selling mil l ions of

copies around the world , like The Name of the Rose. After three mon ths

Baudolino remains on top of the bestseller list in Italy, but it is m u c h

too early to speak of its true or lasting success wi th critics or the general

publ ic . Baudolino is unquest ionably another example of Eco 's wel l

k n o w n pos tmodern encyclopedic pastiche and has p lenty of ingredients

- humor , intertextuality, filmic effects, funny anecdotes , legends , and a

clever fusion of history and e lements taken from "pop cul ture" - for it

to b e c o m e another success story. But, regardless of the n u m b e r of

1 This is the first of a two-part article on the coherence of Eco's fiction. In the second part I shall deal with specific leitmotifs that link Baudolino to The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum. I shall also focus on other features such as levels of laughter, historicity, and how Eco once again deals with a variety of notions of knowledge. The second part of the title of this article refers specifically to Eco's article: "Polo: descrivere l'ignoto" (see Sugli specchi, pp. 61-66) originally published in L'Espresso as "Il Milione: descrivere l'ignoto". All quotations from Baudolino come from the first Bompiani edition and the page references will be indicated in parentheses in the text.

For an account of the so-called "caso" or "fenomeno Eco", as it was labelled in Italy, see F. Pansa and A. Vinci, Effetto Eco, Rome: Nuova edizione del Gallo, 1992; M. Ganeri, Il caso Eco, Palermo: Palumbo, 1991; and R. Capozzi, "Troppi movimenti intorno al Pendolo di Eco", in Quaderni d'Italianistica 2 (1998), 301-13.

Rocco Capozzi 212

copies that this novel will sell, this is without a doubt the author 's mos t

humorous and entertaining fiction so far. It is a great manifestat ion of

combin ing fiction and metafiction, narrat ion and narrativity.

The existence of Baudolino was f i rs t made k n o w n dur ing the

closing ce remony of the Festival of Literature at Man tua (see Laura

Lilli 's interview in Repubblica, 11 September 2000) , two mo n t h s before

its official release. On N o v e m b e r 18, the day that Baudolino r eached

book stores across Italy, nat ional newspapers like Repubblica, Corriere

della Sera, and Il Messaggero, and the weekly magaz ine L'Espresso

carried the f irs t reviews by reputable critics such as Mar i a Cort i ,

Rober to Crotoneo, Renato Minore , and Giovanni Mariott i . Thus , twenty

years after the publicat ion of the unprecedented international success

story of Eco's medieval semiotic sleuth-fiction, The Name of the Rose

(1980) , comes out another long "ques t " novel (526 pages) set in the

early Middle Ages . The historical per iod of Baudolino p recedes by over

a century the t ime frame of the adventures of Wil l iam and A d s o (set in

1327), as i t spans from 1155 3 , when the main protagonis t Baudo l ino , at

the age of twelve or thirteen, is adopted by the emperor Freder ick

Barbarossa, to the year 1204, when he meets in Byzan t ium the historian

Nice ta Coniate , interlocutor and future narrator of the Gesta Baudolini.

Throughout Baudolino we read, among other events , about the Holy

R o m a n emperor Frederick (who drowned in March of 1190 whi le

t rying to cross the Selef River on horseback) , and the Byzan t ine empi re

that is in a state of turmoil and at war with western nat ions . T h e novel

opens and closes with the sack of Costant inople at the hands of the

fourth Crusade in Apri l of 1204. In Italy these are the early days of the

età comunale (age of communes ) and the es tabl ishment of the Lega

lombarda, w h e n northern cities continually m a k e and break al l iances as

they battle one another for territorial and economic supremacy . T h e

XII th Century is also a century that sees the growing struggle for p o w e r

be tween popes and emperors and a period when the universi t ies of Paris

and Bologna become famous for the teaching of theology, ph i losophy ,

rhetoric, and law. A m o n g the cultural activities of this per iod especial ly

relevant to Baudolino are the diffusion of the Arthur ian chivalr ic

3 An interesting coincidence that is worth mentioning in relation to Baudolino is that in 1155 a Norman poet called Wace translated Geoffrey of Monmouth's fables of Arthur and Merlin from Latin to French. And so by 1190 "the Tristan romance, the lais of Marie de France and the romances of Chrétien de Troyes had all seen the light of day" (Matarasso 11). Theoretically then, Baudolino does not invent the cultural events in his fabulation but merely appropriates them.

Baudol ino homo ludens 213

romances following Chrétien de Troves ' publ icat ion of the legend of the

Grail (Le Conte du Graal, 1190), and an increase in the n u m b e r of

s tudents and clerics (whom Eco calls vagantes4) engaged in travell ing,

s tudying, discovering, interpreting, and discussing manuscr ip ts and

texts. Fur thermore , it is also important to ment ion at this point that the

saga of Baudol ino takes place nearly a century before the publ icat ion of

Marco Polo's Il Milione5.

The f irs t reviewers of the novel have not failed to ment ion Eco's

narrat ive skills or the picaresque and autobiographical features of his

wri t ing. To some extent the author m a y have encouraged readers to see

a connect ion be tween Baudol ino and Eco when he , in his interview

with Laura Lilli and in his article "Baudol ino , c'est moi !" , boasted,

m u c h the same w a y as the protagonis t does in the novel , about his

capacity to tell stories, such as the one about the birth of his nat ive city

of Alessandria . Readers of How to Travel With a Salmon (1994; 234-

48) m a y recall that in the f inal chapter of this collection Eco talks about

the "Miracle of Saint Baudo l ino" and the history of Alessandr ia whi le

mak ing some autobiographical r emarks 6 . But, i f we are to focus on the

autobiographical allusions in this novel , then we should perhaps

consider that Baudol ino is not that m u c h different from the other ma in

protagonis ts of Eco's previous novels and thus we should examine in

greater depth the links be tween the semiotic detective Wil l iam of

Baskervi l le and Eco , the Sam Spade of publ ishing houses Casaubon and

Eco , as well as the links between the sh ipwrecked metafictional narrator

Rober to della Gr iva and Eco.

The title of my article refers to the return of the r enowned

semiotician narrator to the art of construct ing entertaining encyclopedic

fiction deal ing with epistemological and semiosic processes . I t also

paraphrases an essay by Eco on Marco Polo ("Il Milione: descr ivere

l ' ignoto", writ ten in 1982; see Sugli specchi 61-66) , which I shall refer

to in my discussion. Before entering into an analysis of Eco's newes t

possible wor ld that is full of humor , i rony, history, anecdotes , books

and pop culture, I shall outline some of the implicat ions in my

expression "the return of Eco" .

4 See section 8, "I Vagantes", in "Verso un nuovo medioevo" (1977; 202-03); also in Travels in Hyperreality, p. 80. 5 Originally published in French, in 1298. The first Italian edition appears in 1309.

6 Just as interesting here we find several elements that are used for the novel, such as the fog, the hero Gagliaudo, Frederick Barbarossa, and the Lega Lombarda.

Rocco Capozzi 214

I feel that Baudolino ( re)confirms Umber to Eco's remarkable

coherence in his t reatment of themes and leitmotifs that have also

appeared in previous books . I am referring especially to those issues

and debates of a linguistic, theological , and phi losophical nature that in

earlier works had also sent us , intratextually, back to such texts as The

Role of the Reader (1979) and Semiotics and Philosophy of Language

(1984) , as well as, intertextually, to a myr iad of other books and authors

from Aristotle to the present. As I have argued e lsewhere (Capozzi ,

1989, 1997, 2001) , the masterful exploitation of these intra- and

intertextual "inferential wa lk s " illustrates well Eco's art of docere et

delectare within a brilliantly constructed encyclopedic fiction, whe re

underneath witty narrative lies we can detect many truths about our

(notions of) culture.

W h a t I am suggest ing is that in Baudolino we can find m a n y of the

motifs and narrative strategies that readers have been accus tomed, and

even expect , to find in Eco's novels . For example , the reader will

discover: a detective story, an a n t i - B i l d u n g s r o m a n 7 , a n historical

fiction, the fabrication of a plan, the art of plott ing a claim to k n o w a

secret, the importance of c o m m o n sense, the ability to perce ive and

interpret signs, metafictional narrat ives, a pastiche of texts including (in

the tradition of Borges) apocryphal ones 8 , narrators wink ing at readers ,

a need to create and narrate stories, and the presence of the past in our

present. Natural ly, this is by no means a complete list.

Wi th the expression "the return of E c o " I am also referring to the

author 's overwhelming erudit ion and his ability to narrate the Midd le

Ages as a period of history, and culture, when society was undergo ing

mass ive changes . And a l though in this article I do not d iscuss

Baudolino as an intertextual machine , an important and familiar

pract ice in Eco's narrative strategies, I am certain that readers will have

no difficulty in recognizing a variety of intertextual echoes per ta in ing

most to the early Middle Ages , but also to more recent t imes. As we

shall see, this is exactly what Eco had done in his thought p rovok ing

essay, "Verso un nuovo M e d i o e v o " (1977: 189-211) w h e n he points out

7I say anti-Bildungsroman in the sense that Baudolino, unlike his predecessors, Adso and Roberto, grows old but learns very little from his life experiences and teachers. 8 I am referring to the Borgesian practice of giving the appearance that information, dates, events, and people are real simply because they are mentioned or quoted in a book. Many readers would agree that Borges' story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis tertius" remains a model of and a masterpiece for illustrating the use of apocryphal texts.

Baudol ino homo ludens 215

the m a n y similarities between the Middle Ages and con temporary

socio-polit ical and cultural events.

Indeed, in addit ion to Marco Polo's Il Milione, in Baudolino readers

will recognize Dantesque references (especially those to Bea t r ice 9 and

the three beas t s 1 0 ) , Rabelaisian allusions to eating (Niceta 's abundant

curiosity of Baudol ino 's stories is matched only by his capaci ty to

consume food), and various symbolic and allegorical figures bor rowed

from the beastiaries and Le livre des merveilles. But, bes ides works of

the Middle Ages some readers may see in the clever fusion of c o m e d y

and satire that accompanies the frequent descript ions of unusual

creatures like the panozi, ponci, blemmi, and cenocefoli literary echoes

of s t range creatures, such as Yahoos and Houyhnhnms11 from Jonathan

Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726). Others m a y think more in terms of

popular literature and for their analogies they m a y resort to

images/frames from the fantastic voyages of Sindbad in The Thousand

and one Nights, or those of Sandokan in Emil io Salgari 's adventure

novels (texts wel l known and liked by Eco) . Also , devoted

pos tmodernis t s will have a field day associat ing Baudol ino 's hyperboles

with the exaggerat ions of the French comic book hero Aster ix, and

lovers of the classic legends of "The Quest of the Holy Gra i l " will have

no difficulty in recognizing in Baudol ino 's quest for the Grail and the

K i n g d o m of Prete Giovanni some of the movie parodies of the Grail

such as those of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) , or Indiana

Jones. The Last Crusade (1989). Confronted with Eco's descript ion of

the panozi, with their immense ears, it is unl ikely that anyone will not

think of Disney 's " D u m b o " the flying elephant . On the same note of

flying creatures , in Baudol ino 's amazing escape on the " roq b i rds" the

literati m a y prefer to see Ariosto's Astolfo flying to the m o o n on a

9 I would find it hard to believe that readers would not suspect that Eco is winking at them as they read that Baudolino, while in Paris, is writing love poems and letters to his first "true love" Beatrice of Bourgogne, the emperor's wife. 10 Granted that they are not exactly the same as in the Inferno, but the Dantesque allusions are quite clear as we see that our adventurous friends ("i nostri amici") have their way blocked by three ferocious beasts, one of which will kill Abdul: ".. .per una petraia priva di ogni filo d'erba, videro venire loro incontro tre bestie. Una era certamente un gatto...L'altra aveva una testa di leone...La terza aveva corpo di leone, coda di scorpione e testa quasi umana" (356). 11 The allusion to Swift is quite obvious in passages such as "i nubiani chiamavano nek il cavallo forse per imitazione di nekbrafpfar, che era il cammello, mentre i blemmi indicavano il cavallo come houyhnhnm" (400).

Rocco Capozzi 216

hippogriff. And speaking of fantastic literature and hippogriffs , once in

this w e b of associations, could we not also think of Buckbeak in J. K.

Rowling 's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999)? A n d wha t

about the fantastic fiction of J. R. Tolkien?

Italian movie buffs m a y very well see in Baudol ino 's comical saga

some funny scenes from the adventures of the miles gloriosus,

Brancaleone (played by Vittorio Gasman) , that captured the at tention of

m a n y viewers as well as wri ters like Luigi Malerba (see Il Pataffio,

1978), in the late Sixties. I am referring to L'armata di Brancaleone

(1968) and Brancaleone alle crociate (1969) , both movies directed by

Mar io Monicel l i with a cast of famous Italian actors. Finally, and still

on movies , two specific passages in Baudolino, first when Il Poeta

(496-97) makes his conjectures on who , and how, a m o n g the four

friends could have stolen the Grail , and later w h e n Pafnuzio (512-16)

reconstructs the rather comical murder scene of Frederick Barbarossa ,

br ing to mind the ingenious adduct ions of Hercule Poirot in Aga tha

Christie 's Death on the Nile, or of similar frames der ived from other

famous detective novels , or perhaps even from the popular m o v i e Clue

(1985 ; directed by J. Lynn) .

A listing of the numerous intratextual al lusions to Eco 's o w n essay

or of the references to his previous novels would require a separate long

article. I shall instead begin my analysis of Baudolino by recal l ing some

of Eco's journal is t ic essays on the Middle Ages and on Marco Polo . The

few brief analogies that I shall make to the author 's previous nove ls will

be used primari ly to reiterate that Baudolino fi ts very well into the

overall frame of Eco's other possible wor lds . Eco has often stated that

his novels (and perhaps the famous semiotician "doth protest too m u c h

me thinks") are a complete separate activity from his phi lological work .

The author also maintains , and quite rightly so, even though he again

exaggerates a little, that in his fiction he invents very little in so far as

he is merely repeating what has already been said with w o r d s or

through images. In essence he says that he is only const ruct ing a

pastiche or collage of citations and allusions. This is also wha t

Baudol ino states about wri t ing/ invent ing his letter of Prete Giovanni :

" Io l'ho r icomposta in buon latino, ho riunito le m e m b r a disperse di

cose che i saggi già sapevano e d icevano, senza che nes suno li

ascoltasse. Ma tutto quello che si dice in quella lettera è vero c o m e il

V a n g e l o " (210) . Needless to say, in the statement we detect some irony

and can feel Eco winking at us .

Given the highly comical tone that persists th roughout the entire

novel , Baudolino seems to contain more e lements from popular cul ture

than from erudite works , thus giving the impression that i t exploi ts low

Baudol ino homo ludens 217

levels of language and style. However , this is only partially true

because in Baudolino Eco mixes in the mos t seamless way a number of

e lements : f i rs t and third person narration, d ia logues , descript ions and

auctorial interventions (see the numerous parenthet ical s ta tements) , as

well as a superb juxtaposi t ion of high and low levels of style, language

and humor . In short, Baudolino confirms Eco's ability to combine a

variety of styles such as the lyrical, the comical , the popular ( including

the vulgar and corporeal) , the erudite, and the historical . Just as

important , the novel is another brilliant demonst ra t ion of the author 's

remarkable art of narrat ing a great deal of the same subject matter that

he has been theorizing about for over four decades . By this I mean his

theories on language, communica t ion , narratology, and above all, on

that vast interdisciplinary f ield of science called semio t ics 1 2 . Semiot ics

combined with narratology in Eco's fiction becomes a field of cogni t ion

that, as we again see in Baudolino, includes History, his tory of cul ture,

history of language(s) , history of ideas, as well as the history of the

novel as a wide ranging genre that encompasses different forms such as

romance , epic, real ism, meta-narrrat ive, historicity, and pos tmodern

encyclopedic fiction.

We recall that The Island of the Day Before was a m o n g other things

a beautiful metafictional revisitation of the history of the novel from the

age of the Baroque to the days of Robert Louis Stevenson and Jules

Verne . In the opening pages Saint Savin reminds Rober to that " the

purpose of a story is to teach and please at o n c e " (81). The novel ends

with Rober t della Griva 's testimonial of his need to narrate (to wri te a

novel) , with a reminder of the impor tance of the "suspens ion of

d i sbe l i e f , and wi th the admission that i t is imposs ible to escape the

"anxiety of influence". These and other narratological features are again

illustrated in Baudolino from the beginning of the novel as the ma in

1 2 The paratextual information on the book cover of the first edition of Il nome della rosa confirms my argument. We recall that in the closing lines of the blurb the author states that he has no intention of "rivelare che cosa il libro voglia dire ("revealing what the book is about"). And concludes that in this text/novel he had no intention of arguing a thesis but rather the notion that at a mature age he has realized that what cannot be theorized must be narrated: "Se avesse voluto sostenere una tesi, avrebbe scritto un saggio (come tanti altri che ha scritto). Se ha scritto un romanzo è perchè ha scoperto, in età matura, che di ciò di cui non si può teorizzare, si deve narrare". I have discussed this Wittgenstein echo elsewhere and the English reader may want to consult the excellent article of Walter Stephens, "Ec(h)o in fabula" where the editorial comment on the book cover of the first Italian edition appears translated almost in its entirety.

Rocco Capozzi 218

protagonist reveals his love and need to narrate: "mi pareva di esistere

solo perchè a sera potevo raccontare quello che mi era accaduto di

ma t t ina . . .E , mi dicevo, quando fossi avanti negli anni, c o m e sarebbe a

dire ora, sulla base di queste note s tenderò le Gesta Baudolini ( 1 7 ) 1 3 .

And without entering into an in-depth examinat ion of Eco's theories on

possible wor lds , here i t suffices to give one example . As we follow the

process through which Baudol ino and his friends construct the k ingdom

of Prete Giovanni , we wi tness a possible world being genera ted in front

of our eyes. Starting from rumors of a letter that ment ions the legendary

Giovanni ( rumors , interestingly enough, that have been started by a

sailor called S indbad 1 4 ) , the main protagonists , usual ly referred to as "i

nostri amici" , begin to invent/construct everything about his k ingdom,

including the palace, the landscape, the people and the animals that

sorround him. We are even provided with maps on h o w to get there,

even if these use the B i b l e 1 5 more than the earth as a mode l . This , I

should add, is only one example of h o w in Baudolino Eco genera tes a

possible world and then takes his protagonists and his readers , th rough

the type of "fictional w o o d s " that he has theorized about e l sewhere , as

in The Role of the Reader (1979) and Six Walks in the Fictional Woods

(1994) .

The entertaining and light-hearted Baudol ino reveals an U m b e r t o

Eco who , in Palazzeschi style, seems to be saying: " lascia temi

diver t i re" ("let me have fun"). Those w h o have appreciated Eco for

years also k n o w that he is a writer w h o enjoys examin ing a var iety of

topics that, intertextually, can expand our encyclopedic compe tence and

at the same t ime provide us with some fun ranging from plain

enter ta inment to sophist icated cultural and intellectual play. Baudol ino

is in many ways a perfect embodiment of the "Eco ludens" that

transpires in bits and pieces from his theoretical works whe re he colors

his a rguments with clever anecdotes and witty remarks . And , as I shall

discuss in greater detail in part two fo this article, Baudolino revisits the

Middle Ages with " h u m o r " (The Name of the Rose gave us a taste of

1 3 Here we may find some real autobiographical allusions to a young Eco, but we also find the Eco on the book cover of The Name of the Rose. See the reference to "età matura" in note 10 above. 14 And here we also see mise en abîmes of embedded stories within the stories in The Thousand and One Nights tradition: "La decisione di scrivere una lettera del Prete Giovanni fu ispirata da una storia che Rabbi Solomon aveva ascoltato dagli arabi di Spagna. Un marinaio, Sindbad...diceva di aver visto sull'isola molti indiani, e quindi l'isola era vicina all'India" (139). 1 5 The maps are pretty much in line with Dante's reliance on the "Tmodel" map of the known world.

Baudol ino homo ludens 219

this) and illustrates J. Huizinga's notion of "cul ture as play" . In his 1938

" F o r e w o r d " to Homo ludens Huiz inga states: "For many years the

convict ion has g rown upon me that civilization arises and unfolds in

and as p l ay" (Huizinga, 1949). The author also explains that in his work

he has tried to "ascertain how far culture itself bears the character of

p l ay" and wishes to show h o w "p lay" is to be unders tood as a "cultural

phenomenon" . My own feeling in reading Baudolino is that the studies

of Johan Huiz inga and Jacques Le Goff 1 6 on the Middle Ages are

a m o n g the major inspiring forces for Eco in this novel . We wou ld

certainly have to agree that the novel , or better, that Baudol ino and his

friends do play with history, religion, literature, myths , and the who le

not ion of culture from beginning to end. This could also explain w h y

Baudol ino comes across not so much as a homo faber as a homo

fabulator, s ince his inventions are mainly mind and w o r d construct ions.

Playing with the continual revival of the Middle A g e s

Eco's competence as a medieval schola r 1 7 was examined by several

critics w h o have discussed the author 's representat ion, and exploitat ion,

of the Middle Ages in The Name of the Rose. Medieval is ts , regardless

of the more playful tone of Baudolino, m a y again wish to examine h o w

the historical, philological , theological , and literary e lements m a k e

Eco's fourth novel a Medieval historical fiction. However , I am not

certain that in Baudolino Eco is part icularly interested in showing off

his famed overwhe lming erudition, and therefore I am choosing to limit

my intra-intertextual remarks to the author 's journal is t ic articles:

"Dreaming of the Middle A g e s " and "Liv ing in the N e w Middle A g e s " ,

(which n o w appear in Travels in Hyperreality 1 8 ); "Huiz inga e il g i o c o "

(an introduction to the 1973 Italian translation of Huizinga 's Homo

ludens), and the article on Marco Polo "Il Milione: descr ivere

l ' ignoto" 1 9 .

16 Readers may in fact find Le Goff s recent illustrated text Immagini per un Medioevo, Rome: Laterza, 2000, an excellent companion to Eco's novel. 1 7 A reputation that he rightly gained from his documented work on Thomas Aquinas, James Joyce and the Middle Ages, and Medieval Signs, and from his overall competence with scholarly criticism on the Middle Ages associated with the great works of such authors as Jacques Le Goff, Ernst R. Curtius, and Johan Huizinga. 18 "Dieci modi di sognare il Medioevo", written in 1983, appears in Sugli specchi (1985); "Verso un nuovo medioevo" was written in 1972 and now appears in Dalla periferia dell'impero (1977). 19 Both articles are found in Sugli specchi, pp. 61-66, and 293-300.

Rocco Capozzi 220

"Dreaming the Middle A g e s " (see Travels in Hyperreality, 61-72)

begins with the following quest ions:

Are there any connections between the Heroic Fantasy of Frank Franzetta, the new satanism, Excalibur, the Avalon sagas, and Jacques Le Goff? If they met abroad some unidentified flying object near Montaillou, would Dart Vafer, Jacques Fournier, and Parsifal speak the same language? If so, would it be a galactic pidgin or the Latin of the Gospel according to St. Luke Skywalker? (61).

This pos tmodern humorous query, could easily have been used by the

author, perhaps with minor changes , by the author as a b o o k cover

blurb in reference to Baudol ino 's saga. We recall that The Name of the

Rose came out when the so-called revival t rend of the Midd le A g e s w a s

widely sustained by academics and fiction writers alike. In Italy we can

think immediate ly of essays like Mar ia Corti 's Il viaggio testuale

(1978) , with the beautiful chapter on the disputatio, or of Il Medioevo

prossimo venturo (1971) by Rober to Vacca , and of novels l ike Laura

Mancinel l i ' s I dodici abati di Challant (1981) . Eco c o m m e n t e d on this

p h e n o m e n o n stating: " W e are witnissing, both in Europe and Amer ica ,

a per iod of renewed interest in the Middle Ages , with a cur ious

oscillation be tween fantastic neo-medieval i sm and responsib le

phi lological examina t ion" (63). This cultural t rend m a y in fact be still

true today, part ly because Eco's novels like The Rose and Baudolino

cont inue to fuel our interest in the Middle Ages , and also because we

share the author 's v iew that the "Midd le Ages are at the root of all our

contemporary hot p rob lems" , so that " looking at the Midd le A g e s

means looking at our infancy" (63-65) .

In the section "Ten Little Middle A g e s " Eco lists ten different w a y s

in which we m a y "dream the Middle Ages" :

1. "The Middle Ages as a pretext". This is the Middle Ages of opera or

of Torquato T a s s o . . . T h e Middle Ages are taken as a sort of

mythological stage on which to place contemporary characters .

2. "The Middle Ages as the site of an ironical revisi tat ion". He re Eco

ment ions Rabelais and M o n t y Python.

3. " T h e Middle Ages as a barbaric age"

4. "The Middle Ages as Romanticism"

5. "The Middle Ages of the philosophia perennis or of n e o - T h o m i s m "

6. "The Middle Ages of Nat ional Ident i t ies"

7. "The Middle Ages of Decadentism"

8. "The Middle Ages of philological reconst ruct ion"

Baudol ino homo ludens 221

9. "The Middle Ages of so-called Tradit ion, or of occult

ph i lo sophy . . . an eternal and rather eclectic ramshackle structure,

swarming with Knigh t s . . .Templa r s , Rosicrucians , a lchemists , Mason ic

initiates, neo-Kabbal is ts , drunk on fascist Wil l to Power , eager to accept

. . . for their improbable visions all the paraphernal ia of the Middle A g es

number 3 , mixing up René Guénon and Conan the Barbar ian, Ava lon

and the K i n g d o m of Prester John". As we can see, this can easily recall

Foucault's Pendulum but also parts of Baudolino.

10. "The Middle Ages as the expectat ion of the Mi l len ium".

I have quoted all ten models because I think that aspects of all of

these categories are narrated in The Name of the Rose and because I

also think that readers will f ind especially the Middle Ages of parts 2,

5, 8 and 9 also applicable to Baudolino. Fur thermore , in the article

"Verso un nuovo Medioevo" , originally divided into 13 subsec t ions 2 0

(translated as "Liv ing in the N e w Middle Ages" , in Travels in

Hyperreality, 73-85) , Eco ment ions relics, Byzan t ium and Huiz inga and

makes a c o m m e n t that contains several e lements that br ing to mind The

Rose and Baudolino:

The Middle Ages preserved in its way the heritage of the past but not through hibernation, rather through a constant retranslation and reuse; its immense work of bricolage, balanced among nostalgia, hope, and despair. Under its apparent immobility and dogmatism, this was paradoxically a moment of 'cultural revolution'. Naturally the whole process is characterized by plagues and massacres, intolerance and death. (84-85)

The word bricolage here captures our attention, and in a rereading

of the original Italian article, the section entitled "L'ar te c o m e

bricolage" may support our hunches that Baudol ino is in fact a

bricoleur w h o in loose terms of deconstruct ionism employs/exploi ts

ideas, names , concepts , God, and historical events wi thout ever

demonst ra t ing the reality of any of them but s imply uses them to prove

a point. In part two I shall return to the possible links be tween

2 0 "Progetto di Apocalisse; Progetto alternativo di Medioevo; Crisi della Pax Americana; La vietnamizzazione del territorio; Il deperimento ecologico; il neonomadismo; L'Insecuritas; I Vagantes; L'Auctoritas; Le forme del pensiero; L'arte del bricolage; I monasteri; La tradizione permanente". It is worth noting that in the English translation some of the opening sections have been rephrased and even more interesting the sections "Le forme del pensiero" and "L'arte come bricolage" have not been translated at all.

Rocco Capozzi 222

Baudol ino and Foucaul t ' s Pendulum and examine if indeed the

al lusions to deconstruct ionism might not be in order. It is not ju s t the

idea of a "p lan" that instigates this type of thinking but also express ions

such as those of Rabbi So lomon on the Torah, that "Vela e svela al

t empo stesso. E apre la via al vortice del l ' interpretazione" (146) . The

same Torah, Rabbi Solomon reminds us, that starts with a "vo ice" : "voi

cristiani non capite che i l testo sacro nasce da una V o c e " (131) .

Baudol ino precursor of M a r c o Polo

In terms of Eco's art of recycl ing, revising and developing prev ious

a rguments , the article on Marco Polo's I l Milione becomes even more

pert inent to our discussion especially because here we recognize

passages that reappear a lmost verbatim in Baudolino. The open ing

paragraph of this article takes us to the pos tmodern pract ice of

combin ing visual media , literature and pop culture as Eco discusses the

mov ie and television adaptat ion of Marco Polo. The author sugges ts

that Polo 's dictation of his memoi r s and adventures to Rus t i che l lo 2 1 - in

essence a series of encyclopedic stories - can be seen as a p recursor of

a narrative genre that mixes together folklore, adventure stories, and

fantastic fabulations. We recall that the original title of Il Milione is " L e

divisament du monde . Livre de Marco Polo ci toyen de Venise , dit

Mil l ion, où l'on conte le mervei l les du m o n d e " (in Italian, "L ibro di

Mons ieu r Marco Polo, ci t tadino venez iano , soprannomina to Mi l ione ,

dove son descritte le meravigl ie del mondo" ) . Speaking of "Les

mervei l les du m o n d e " Eco ment ions that in an illustrated manuscr ip t

found in the Bibl iothèque Nat ionale of Paris, in chapter 157, where

Polo describes the K i n g d o m of Coilu, are illustrated some unusua l

creatures that Polo did not speak of: "un Blemma, cioè uno di quei

favolosi esseri senza testa con la bocca sullo s tomaco, l'altro è uno

Sciapode, che sta sdraiato al l 'ombra del suo unico piede , e il terzo un

Monoco lo" . The author adds "esat tamente quanto i l lettore del

manoscr i t to si at tendeva di t rovare in quella regione, che poi è l 'India,

regno del leggendario Prete Giovanni , ο Presto G i o v a n n i c o m e lo

c h i a m a P o l o " (62). These anecdotes appear in chapters xcii and xciii of

Il Milione.

21 From Ettore Camesasca's introduction to 77 Milione we learn that Rustichello was also a writer of chivalric literature dealing with the Round Table, Merlin and Lancelot. Thus we wonder if Rustichello might not have added his own flavor of romance to Polo's saga.

Baudol ino homo ludens 223

Consider ing that Eco includes blemmi, sciapodi, monocoli, and the

quest for the K i n g d o m of Prete Giovanni in Baudolino, I find it

appropriate to recall also how Eco answers his o w n quest ion on w h y the

illustrator of the manuscr ip t dares to include these fantastic creatures

that did not appear in Polo's wor ld 2 2 . As Eco affirms, i t is because Polo ,

jus t like his readers did, relied on the auctoritas of texts: "f idando in

una catena ininterrotta di dott issime enciclopedie che ragguardavano

sulle meravigl ie del mondo , sapeva che dovevano esserc i" (Sugli

specchi, 62) . Moreover , speaking of Marco Polo 's anxiety of influence,

Eco adds: "E il bello di Messer Marco Polo è che , a m o d o propr io , è

u o m o del suo t empo e non riesce a sottrarsi all ' influenza di quei libri,

magar i non letti, che gli insegnano cosa dovrebbe vede re " (Sugli

specchi, 63-64 ; also in Kant and the Platypus, 57-58) .

This is precisely the notion that we find narrated in great and vivid

detail in the novel beginning with chapter 6, whe re we learn about the

" format ion" and "educa t ion" of Baudol ino dur ing his years in Paris . For

nearly six years the protagonist stays in the French capital where with

his inseparable friends Kyot, Borone , Abdul , and Il Poeta, he not only

learns about w o m e n but also reads many books , both real and

apocryphal ones (see p. 90). We are also told that the library of San

Vit tore (in a familiar Borges /Eco fashion), which provides h im with so

many diverse books , is a great repository of universal knowledge (74):

Leggeva di terre lontane...Leggeva di paesi dove vivevano uomini senza giuntura alle ginocchia, uomini senza lingua, uomini dalle orecchie grandissime con le quali riparavano il corpo dal freddo, e gli sciapodi, che corrono velocissimi su un solo piede...Ma quando arrivava all'India, Baudolino quasi dimenticava Beatrice, e alla sua mente si volgeva ad altre fantasie, perchè si era messo in testa che da quelle parti dovesse esserci, se mai c'era, il regno di quel Presbyter Joannes di cui gli aveva parlato Ottone. (77-78)

Satisfying his avid curiosity, Baudol ino also reads about fantastic

places and thus i t is only normal that the could recognize them dur ing

his Odyssey to the exotic lands in the East. In fact, when Baudol ino and

his friends arrive at Pndapetz im and see strange creatures that resemble

the b l emmi and panozi they can immediate ly say, but of course they are

b l emmi and panozi , we have read about them and therefore they exist:

22 In Ettore Camesasca's edition of Il Milione (between pp. 128 and 129) we find an illustration taken from Le livre des Merveilles depicting some strange creatures called metrucci that look exactly like the blemma and the panozi.

Rocco Capozzi 224

Quando l'essere si fermò davanti a loro, videro che il suo solo piede era grande il doppio di un piede umano, ma ben formato, con unghie quadre, e cinque dita che sembravano tutte alluci, tozze e robuste...Baudolino e i suoi amici lo roconobbero subito, per averne letto e sentito parlare tante volte: era uno sciapode, e d'altra parte avevano messo sciapodi anche nella lettera del Prete. (390)

This scene is repeated with the encounter of other creatures:

Ecco i ponci e, anche se ne avevano letto, i nostri amici non cessavano di esaminare con occhio curioso quegli esseri con le gambe senza giunture alle ginocchia...Ma ciò che li faceva notare era, per gli uomini, il fallo che pendeva sul petto, e per le femmine, nella stessa posizione, la vagina, che però non si vedeva perchè la coprivano con uno scialle annodato dietro la schiena..."Proprio come era scritto sui libri", continuava a mormorare ammirato Borone. (379-380).

A n d when they face the cinecefoli w h o are impr isoning them, i t is

sufficient for "our fr iends" to say: "Erano cinecefoli. D u n q u e es i s tono ."

(464; "They were cinecefoli . Therefore they exist .") .

This line of reasoning that Eco examines in the Midd le A g e s is

illustrated through Marco Polo w h o bel ieved to have seen the

proverbial unicorn that is ment ioned so often in Eco's semiot ic t ex t s 2 3 :

"po teva Marco Polo non cercare unicorni? Li cerca, e li t rova. Vog l io

dire, non p u ò evitare di guardare alle cose con gli occi della cu l tura"

(1977; 64). The notion that in the Middle Ages i t was quite c o m m o n not

to m a k e a disinction be tween what one had read, or heard of, and wha t

really existed, also appears in one of Eco's "Bust ina di Minerva" , the

humorous and often provocat ive co lumns publ ished in the week ly

magaz ine L'Espresso. I am referring to "S iamo così diversi da Marco

Polo? Vedere , guardare , e poi raccontare" ("Are we so different from

Marco Polo? To look, to see, and then to na r r a t e " 2 4 that deals wi th Polo

and with the remote possibil i ty that he may not have gone to China .

A n d here we must recall that this is also a theory of Frances W o o d in

Did Marco Polo Go to China? (1995) .

23 See, for esample, Polo's reaction in encountering a rhino thinking it was a unicorn in Kant e l'ornitorinco (1997; Kant and the Platypus, 2000). 2 4 "Alla luce delle mie frequentazioni medievali, non mi stupirei affatto se Marco Polo non fosse davvero arrivato in Cina, perchè i libri di viaggi fantastici (presentati come autentici) erano diffusissimi all'epoca sua. Il valore della tradizione era tale che si riteneva che non ci fosse differenza tra aver sentito parlare di un unicorno e dire di averlo visto" (L'Espresso, 29 March 1998).

Baudol ino homo ludens 225

An d so how could Baudol ino go to the far East and not encounter a

unicorn? In a memorab le lyrical passage, whi le Baudol ino medi ta tes

near an idyllic lake, moments before the beautiful creature Ipazia

arrives "hal f w o m a n and half goat", there appears the mythical animal:

"sulle rive di quello specchio d'acqua, vide uscire dal bosco un animale

che non aveva mai incontrato in vita sua, ma r iconosceva

ben i s s imo . . .E ra il l iocorno o, come diceva Baudol ino da piccolo, il

l ioncorno, ovvero l 'unicorno, i l monoceros delle sue fantasie infantil i"

(422.)

In Il Milione, as in Baudolino, the unicorn is treated in the same

fashion as the news about Prete Giovanni . Eco explains that Polo has

seen and heard everything and while the wor ld that he descr ibes may be

amazing , for Polo i t is not incredible: "Cer to , p rende per la buona tutta

la storia del l ' impero di Prete Gianni , ma c'era in giro tanto di lettera

diplomat ica (seppure falsa, oggi lo sappiamo) manda ta cent 'anni p r ima

al l ' imperatore di B isanz io" (65). Again this is exact ly wha t Baudol ino

does with rumors (le voci) about the letter and the exis tence of Prete

Giovanni . His teacher, good friend and uncle of the emperor Frederick,

cardinal Ot tone, had also heard these rumors . At his death Ot tone

makes Baudol ino promise him that he will wri te / invent this letter and

m a k e it appear as if it had been sent to Freder ick in order to convince

the emperor that he must go and search for his k ingdo m in the Indies.

W h e n the plan of the letter fails, Baudol ino will use the quest for the

"Gra i l " to accompl ish the same goal. And thus , the expedi t ion begins in

search of Prete Giovanni , primarily because , m a n y others , like "our four

friends", had their own reasons for finding the "Gra i l " and " the

k i n g d o m " (see pp. 178, 321).

The conclus ion of the article on Marco Polo m a y give us a clue on

how to read the man Baudol ino the trickster, liar, and exaggerator , on

how Nice ta reads Baudol ino as he fabulates lies and stories, and to

some extent even on how readers should be reading the novel

Baudolino. Eco explains that Polo looked around and registered with a

degree of coldness that which today we bel ieve to be outr ight lies. But

"A differenza di ogni enciclopedia medievale , non a l l egor izza . . . " (66) .

In other words , Baudol ino , like Polo , tells his stories as he sees them

and as he bel ieves them to be true, even if he has invented mos t of

them. Niceta fully unders tands this and actually admires Baudol ino ' s

tenacity.

Baudolino does not contain allegorical descript ions like those of the

church's portals or of the cena Cipriani that we find in The Name of the

Rose. Nonethe less , like the quest for the Holy Grail and other medieval

literature than can be read on more than one level, I wou ld think that

Rocco Capozzi 226

even if Baudolino is not intended as a spiritual fable, it does contain

plenty of irony, parody, satire, and overall criticism that can be directed

at the events and protagonists under scrutiny. For example , in the

discussions between Baudol ino and Frederick about the confusion and

intricacies of Italian politics ( see pp. 52, 107, 153, 154, 209) involving

cities like Genova , Lodi , Milan, and Cremona , the f irst thing that comes

to mind is that Eco expects his readers to suspect some clever

associat ion be tween the "Lombard L e a g u e " at the t ime of the

c o m m u n e s and the northern Lega headed by today's right w i n g leader

Umber to Bossi . We need only to think of sentences such as " In questa

Italia più si va avanti e più t ' impantani , non si può essere impera tore là

dove c'è anche un papa" (219) , and immediate ly we feel that Eco is

wink ing at us .

In the same fashion, under the comical tone that accompanies the

descript ions of the political wars conducted by the crusaders against the

Turks and the Byzant ine empire we can detect an Eco speaking on h o w

there have a lways been fanatics w h o claim to f ight in the n a m e of

religion, but are more interested in power and wealth. Heret ics , relics,

intolerance, prejudice, thirst for power (see especially the d iscuss ions

with Praxeas , the leader of the eunuchs) , are central themes that appear

so frequently in the novel that even though they m a y not a lways be

loaded with satire and irony, they do make us wonde r if Baudolino

should not in fact also be read as a humorous satire in the tradit ion of

Montesquieu ' s Persian Letters or certainly of Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

In short, underneath the sheer playfulness of the fantastic stories plenty

of allusions can be found to recent historical events , and in the

imaginary voyages of Baudol ino, we should in fact look for Eco's

crit icism of political, theological , and social and cultural issues of

t imes past and of the present. Ot tone, Zos imo, and Ardzoun i m a y

appear to be comical figures and caricatures of monks , clerics, and

hermits of the t ime, but, as in Boccaccio 's Decameron, they also reveal

a lot of the hypocrisy, falsity, polit ics, and thirst for p o w e r that rel igious

figures shared with laymen (and not jus t at the t ime of the crusades) .

A m o n g other examples we could think of are the v iews held by the

sciapode Gavagai , w h o does not bel ieve in differences, or the rel igious

rituals of the blemmi, panozi, and gimnosofisti, or the eunuchs ' need to

control , not to ment ion Diacono 's doubts concerning his role as

r e p r e s e n t a t i v e of Prete Giovanni .

To read is to see and to know

Baudol ino homo ludens 227

On numerous occasions we see the Umber to Eco w h o loves to

discuss and narrate a variety of not ions of knowledge and h o w we

perceive things, recognize them, and n a m e them. But Baudol ino is

pr imari ly a novel that deals explicity with narrat ive lies and about

people that (con)fuse, or blur the distinction be tween vis ions , ecstasy,

deep desires , wishful thinking, faith, skepticism, heretical beliefs, faked

relics, mag ic , fantastic creatures, unscientifically p roven theories and

facts, and reality. A n d as we have seen with the examples related to

Marco Polo , the unicorn, the Grail , and the k ingdom of Prete Giovanni ,

Baudolino is also about how people use faulty logic, media ted

knowledge (and thus, texts vs. exper ience?) , exploi t the al leged veraci ty

of texts, quotat ions from books that they have read or heard about, and

abuse interpretation, all to prove a point. Baudolino, wh ich often recalls

pages from Foucault's Pendulum, is about invent ing a plan and mak ing

people bel ieve in it because to have or to k n o w a secret plan also

implies having power . Baudol ino learned this at the court of Frederick,

"il potere è tu t to" (128; "Power is al l") , and this is also the fundamental

belief to which Praxeas and the eunuchs fully subscr ibe.

Baudol ino is mainly about the art of fabulating, but it is also a novel

about friendship (especially the type of friendship that we see a m o n g

knights and be tween Lancellot , Guenevere and King Arthur) . It is also a

story about bel ieving, and not jus t in rel igious terms. F r o m the initial

pages we notice h o w Baudol ino bel ieves in his own fantasies to the

point that he actually forgets that he is one w h o original ly invented a

story that circulates about Prete Giovanni and the Grail . We in fact see

Baudol ino endanger his life trying tyo rescue the "Gra i l " (which is

really his father's soup bowl) and during this quest he loses m a n y close

friends like Abdul , Rabbi Solomon, and Gavaga i . We also see h o w

often people bel ieve everything to be true that they have read or heard

about. Eco illustrates once again h o w our exper iences and our cultural

competence may indeed be based more on indirect knowledge than on

first hand experience. Abdul certainly under l ines this not ion, even

though we m a y feel that Eco is ironic w h e n the protagonis t , feeling

ridiculed by Il Poeta, responds: " N o n è necessar io essere stato in un

luogo, per sapere tutto su di esso . . . a l t r iment i i marinai sarebbero più

sapienti dei teo logi" (82; "It is not necessary to have been at a place, in

order to k n o w everything about i t . . .o therwise sailors wou ld be more

knowledgeab le than theologians") . W h e n Ardzrouni pra ises ph i losophy

he makes an interesting observat ion on the p o w e r of menta l pract ices

stating: " Io non sono un meccanico , sono un fi losofo, e t raggo le mie

conclusioni in base al pens ie ro" (339; "I am not a mechan ic , I am a

phi losopher , and I draw my conclusions on the basis of thought" ) . But

Rocco Capozzi 228

perhaps i t is Ipazia w h o best summar izes how Baudol ino and his friends

claim to know a lot of things when she replies to Baudol ino saying that

a l though she had never seen a man she can conclude that there mus t be

one: "Dava a vedere di r iconoscere un u o m o come lui aveva

r iconosciuto l 'unicorno, per averne sentito parlare tante vol te , senza

averlo mai v i s to" (424).

H o w we can get to k n o w things and how we draw conclus ions i s

actually a key moti f that runs throughout Baudolino. It beg ins wi th

Baudol ino bel ieving in hav ing seen Saint Baudol ino in the fog, in the

Frascheta where he grew up ; this is echoed in Abdul ' s s tory about the

vis ions created by the "green honey" , and is again rei terated in

conjunction with the quest of the Grail and of Prete Giovanni . I t is also

al luded to in Niceta 's c o m m e n t on the veracity of relics and on the

impor tance of contextual iz ing them: "è la fede che le fa vere , non esse

che fanno la fede" (180; "It is faith that renders the relics real and not

the relics that m a k e the faith"). Ipazia 's c o m m e n t is even m o r e tell ing

w h e n she shows Baudol ino the difference be tween seeing and

bel ieving, stating that to see does not mean to bel ieve, rather, to be l ieve

m e a n s to see.

T h e love of disputatio

In Eco's novels we encounter long debates on a var ie ty of

epis temological , phi losophical , and theologicall issues. Wi l l iam,

Casaubon , and Rober to all face interlocutors like Jorge da Burgos ,

Bernardo Guy , and Father Caspar with w h o m they a rgue about

auctoritas, the book of Revelat ion, apacalyptic anxiet ies, the dist inct ion

be tween skepticism and increduli ty, and about the exis tence and

omnipo tence of God. In Baudolino the discussions on the Trini ty, the

Virg in Mary , and God 's creation of a wor ld that includes evil , dea th and

diseases, we get the impress ion that these are the cont inuat ion of the

debates initiated in The Island of the Day Before be tween Rober to and

the Jesuit Father Caspar . But here the Bible, Aristot le , St. Anse lm,

T h o m a s Aquinas , Neopla tonism, Descar tes , Kant , and Spinoza , w h o are

some of Eco's favoritte sources for these debates , m a y not be so

obvious . W h a t is evident is Baudol ino 's great pr ide in his compe tence in

story-tell ing and in the art of debat ing. He even uses Ipazia 's

phi losophical a rguments on God and creation to interject a narcissist ic

rebuttal that d raws attention to his competence : "Ipazia , sei acuta,

sensibile, perspicace, sai condurre una disputatio colto meg l io di me

che pure ho studiato a P a r i g i . . . " (432) .

Baudol ino homo ludens 229

In the long theological and Neo-pla tonic debates be tween Baudol ino

and Ipazia (see especially chapters 33 and 34) we can recognize similar

ontological a rguments on the existence and definition of God that

appeared in previous novels , and we also recognize the Eco of the

debates wi th Cardinal Martini (1997) , especial ly w h e n he states: " l ike

Kant, I don' t see h o w one can possibly not bel ieve in God , can mainta in

that it is impossible to prove his existence, and yet also firmly bel ieve

in the nonexis tence of God, maintaining that this can be p r o v e n " (1977 ;

96). Ano the r passage from Belief and Non-Belief echoed in Baudolino

is the reference to Thomas Aquinas when he commen t s on the mystery

of substance of the body of Christ and if in fact i t could have been taken

from the female body of Mary: "as you know, the Gnost ic theories that

were in circulation held that Christ passed through the body of Mary

like Wate r through a pipe, as if incidentally channeled, not touched by

her body, not polluted by any of the immunditia that goes a long with

the phys io logy of chi ldbir th" (62). In Baudolino s imilar a rguments

appear for example when Ottone explains the Trini ty (see p. 58) .

We would have to agree that for an enter taining novel Baudolino

certainly contains m a n y argumentat ions on religion (see in part icular

chapters 29-34) . Once the protagonists arr ive at Pndape tz im, the

theological debates abound. Of special interest are the discussions

be tween Ipazia and Baudol ino on the impossibi l i ty to define G o d

except in terms of differences and of wha t he is not (432) . In the

chapters dedicated to Ipazia we also notice a lot of Neop la ton i sm in the

discussions on beauty, perfection, love, w o m e n , nature , and ha rmony .

And in one instance Ipazia is depicted as a donna angelicata, whi le

Baudol ino , like the poets of the dolce stil nuovo, remains enchanted and

speechless in front of so much beauty and perfection (422-23) .

Baudol ino homo ludens: describing the u n k n o w n

Baudol ino , not unl ike his predecessors Wil l iam, Casaubon , and

Rober to , illustrates very well the author 's not ion of h o w m a n "out of

necessi ty aspires to construct narratives capable of provid ing an

explanat ion and a model , an exemplary i m a g e " (1997 ; 101). The

references to the need, importance, function, and art of narrat ing stories

in Baudolino are numerous . Frequently we encounter phrases such as

"una storia così ben costrui ta" (122), that al lude to a variety of not ions

of narrat ivi ty and metafiction. Also , throughout the novel we get to see

what is meant to achieve "ver is imil i tude" in order to m a k e fiction

bel ievable and enjoyable, and we are constant ly reminded of h o w m u c h

Baudol ino bel ieves in his own fiction. His stories sound and b e c o m e so

Rocco Capozzi 230

real that often Niceta will observe: "Tale era i l suo potere che essa

diventa ver i tà" (66), or "La pass ione con cui Baudol ino ne par lava era

la tes t imonianza di ver i tà" (331). And let us not forget that

wri t ing/narrat ing for Baudol ino is also therapeutic: "Baudo l ino

sembrava ansioso di parlare con qualcuno, come per liberarsi di cose

che s i teneva dentro da chissà q u a n d o " (33); or, "Solo quando ho potuto

raccontar lo a te mi sono sentito l ibero" (214; see also p. 28) . Moreover ,

in a Sheharazade fashion narrat ing is synonymous with staying alive as

we see when the four protagonis ts resort to recall ing their o w n

adventures in order to keep sane whi le they are impr isoned by the

cenocefoli. Baudol ino 's stories which at t ime are reminiscent of the

exchanges be tween Polo and Kubla Khan in Calvino 's Invisible Cities,

fascinate the Diacono and excite his curiosity. Niceta r epr imands

Baudol ino for excit ing the Diacono to the point of orgasm and also for

showing excessive pride in his storytell ing, stating: "Acceleravi la sua

mor te , por tandolo all 'estremo della frenesia e della consunz ione di tutti

i suoi sensi, e soddisfacevi il tuo gusto per la favola, eri orgogl ioso delle

tue invenzioni" (414) .

In addit ion to the art of narrat ing Baudolino is also a tes t imonial to

the impor tance of creating possible wor lds for the sake of effective

argumentat ion. This pract ice is amply demonstra ted by Eco w h e n e v e r

his protagonists are engaged in a t tempting to resolve phi losophica l or

theological paradoxes , or t rying to explain difficult l inguistic, semiot ic ,

historic, cultural, or narratological theories. Therefore, when we hear

Baudol ino claim, "Non c'è nulla di megl io che immaginare altri

m o n d i . . . a d immaginare altri mondi , s i f inisce per cambiare anche

ques to" (104) , or I l Poeta say: "Ogni storia può essere b u o n a " (142) , or

Nice ta affirm that "non ci sono storie senza senso" (17), we are in fact

r eminded that somet imes it is important to use and invent fables and

possible wor lds that provide images , mode ls , metaphors , and cogni t ive

sys tems that contr ibute to illustrate more effectively one's theories .

Baudol ino 's greatest gift is unques t ionably his imaginat ion. In the

open ing pages we see h o w easily he " s e e s " in a thick fog saints and

magic creatures, and h o w he hears "voices" . I t is not surpris ing w h e n

Cardinal Ot tone, on his death bed, instead of assigning the j o b to his

successor Rahewino , convinces Baudol ino to wri te the letter of Prete

Giovanni . The explanation is s imple: Baudol ino can narrate even that

which he has never seen: "Rahewino non ha fantasia, può solo

raccontare quello che ha visto, e certe volte neppure quello, pe rchè non

capisce che cosa ha visto. Tu invece puoi immaginare ciò che non hai

v i s to" (61). This special power of be ing able to narrate is rei terated

cont inuously in the course of the novel and is often under l ined by

Baudol ino homo ludens 231

Niceta w h e n he at t imes congratulates his fellow fabulator and at other

t imes he repr imands him for his excessive pr ide. However , the

"Pr incipe della m e n z o g n a " (88; " T h e Prince of lies") will show some

modes ty at the end, and when Ipazia asks if all m e n are great

storytellers Baudol ino replies: "No . . . f o r se lui ne raccontava più e

megl io dei suoi congeneri , ma c'erano tra quelli anche i poet i , che

sapevano raccontare megl io ancora" (426).

But, wha t exactly is it that Baudol ino , the great picaro and miles

gloriosus, describes to his listeners and readers? If the "merve i l l e s"

recounted by the "tr ickster" (excluding the story of the birth of his

nat ive city Alessandria) are not new, wha t makes his fabulations so

fascinating? Is i t the language? His rewrit ing of legends? The historical

background? Or is it our love for adventures to exotic lands, about

which like Utopias, lost continents and futuristic heavens , we never get

tired of reading? Most probably it is all of these and more . But

ul t imately wha t fascinates us in Eco's fiction is not the d iscovery of

some hidden truths underneath the narrat ive lies, rather i t is the amoun t

of information ( including trivia) and educat ion that can be gleaned from

his poss ible worlds .

As already ment ioned, the saga of our protagonis t begins as

Baudol ino saves Niceta Coniate near the H ippod rome , in the church of

Saint Sofia, where the masterpieces of antiquity had been stored whi le

clerics and knights , in their haste to gain priceless relics, were also

sacking churches and museums . These are the historic days of the

pi l laging of Costant inople. Baudol ino enters the church jus t as Nice ta

was about to lose his life. We soon realize that Baudol ino has saved the

historian because he needs a scriptor for his gesta and Nice ta is m o r e

than wil l ing to help h im because he is, after all, an historian and

fabulator in his own right.

In the closing pages of the novel Niceta is worr ied that Baudol ino ,

w h o is n o w over sixty, is about to r e sume travell ing. Perhaps

paraphras ing Emil io Salgari 's notion that " to narrate is to t ravel" ,

Baudol ino 's reply to Niceta is that "Viaggiare r ing iovanisce" (524;

"Travel keeps you young") , and therefore he will r esume his search for

the K i n g d o m of Prete Giovanni . The quest must go on, be i t for the

Grail , or for anything that metaphorical ly implies an endless search for

more knowledge .

In the last chapter, "Baudol ino non c'è p i ù " ("Baudol ino is gone" ) ,

we find Pafnuzio discouraging Niceta from wri t ing the Gesta Baudolini

not jus t because "uno scrittore di Istorie non p u ò prestare fede a una

tes t imonianza così incerta" (525) , but also because of the dangerous

content of Baudol ino 's stories. Fear ing that Nice ta will wri te about the

Rocco Capozzi 232

truth of so many fake relics and lies, Pafnuzio convinces the Byzan t ine

historian to apply some censorship to his narration when deal ing with

relics. More important, Pafnuzio appeals to Niceta 's responsibi l i ty as an

historian (and as writer in general , we can assume) and convinces h im

to change some historical facts:

Cancella anche i genovesi, altrimenti dovresti dire delle reliquie che fabbricavano, e i tuoi lettori perderebbero la fede nelle cose più sacre. Ti ci vorrà poco ad alterare leggermente gli eventi, dirai che sei stato aiutato da dei veneziani. Sì, lo so, non è la verità, ma in una grande Istoria si possono alterare delle piccole verità perchè ne risalti la verità più grande. (525)

Niceta is a little disappointed that he will not be able to narrate the

beautiful narrat ive lies told by Baudol ino: "Era una bella storia. Peccato

che nessuno la venga a sapere" . Pafnuzio, partly deflating Niceta 's

"nar ra t ive" ego (which is not m u c h different than Baudol ino ' s ) , replies:

" N o n crederti l 'unico autore di storie a questo m o n d o . P r ima ο poi

qua lcuno, p iù bugiardo di Baudol ino , la racconterà" (526) . In fact,

possibly better than Niceta , and certainly as well as Baudo l ino ,

Umber to Eco has narrated it, and many readers will be glad that he did

because this story is a wonderful fusion of pagan and Chris t ian epics

(Homer , Chrét ien de Troyes , Dante , and Ariosto coming together , so to

speak) about a pi lgrim's Odyssey " to hell and back" . Fur thermore , with

Baudolino Eco proves to be "a p r ince" of encyclopedic fables that can

expand our mind and st imulate our thirst for more knowledge . We

recall that Ipazia, the mar tyr queen of the ipazie was a teacher of

phi losophy, and phi losophy according to Ipazia is " love for k n o w l e d g e "

(426) . This is said a lmost at the end of the novel but i t sends us right

back to the beginning of the story w h e n Baudol ino is told to go and

s tudy in Paris because "il sapere è una forma di p o t e r e " (59;

" K n o w l e d g e is a form of power" ) .

***

One quest ion that comes to mind as we finish reading the nove l is

whether with the witty fabulator Baudol ino Eco is rewri t ing Le Conte

du Graal and Il Milione, and thus he is also creat ing his precursors?

T h e answer could be immediate ly , w h y not, if, like Borges in "Kafka

and his precursors" , we agree that in many ways every wri ter does

create his precursors . Indeed, in Baudolino we find Homer ' s Ulysses ,

Marco Polo , and Dante 's Ulysses , and echoes of Ar ios to , Swift, and

Baudol ino homo ludens 233

Salgari, jus t to n a m e a few authors , that wou ld suggest a m o n g m a n y

other things that Eco's novel creates, and becomes at the same t ime a

precursor of epic, chivalric, p icaresque, and travel adventure fiction.

Of course we mus t consider that the entire novel is playful. Readers

have appreciated the metafictional and intertextual echoes which set the

tone of the playful literal allusions in The Name of the Rose. We recall

that the Pro logue begins with a quotat ion from Genes is , "In the

beginning there was the w o r d . . . " and that the f i r s t D a y opens wi th an

allusion to Snoopy, "It was a beautiful morn ing at the end of

November" . Baudol ino also begins with an allusion to a literary

beginning. Italian scholars will easily recognize it as the first

documented Italian written text, the Placito capuano (writ ten in 960)

that begins with "Sao Ke kelle terre per kelli f ini ke ki contene" . The

first pa l impses t on which Baudol ino begins to wri te his own Gesta

Baudolini is in fact written in a liguistic pastiche, in an invented

p iedmontese dialect that contains innumerable " k e " sounds . Eco loves

to play wi th linguistic signs and languages , and th roughout Baudolino

we also see h im having fun mak ing Greek the lingua franca wi th wh ich

Baudol ino and his friends communica te with people from far a w a y

lands, including Gavagai , Ipazia and the Diacono , all of w h o m speak

"o t t imo" and "perfetto g reco ."

A m o n g the ple thora of hilarious witty remarks we f ind n u m e r o u s

funny ironic s tatements . For example , after near ly four hundred pages

of fabricating lies, smuggl ing faked relics ( including Veronica ' s image

of Chris t) , we see Baudol ino scandalized by the idea that "al m o n d o

potessero esistere falsari di tal fatta" ( 2 3 1 ; " that in the wor ld there could

be such counterfei ters") . Or, after he and his friends have been tell ing

fantastic stories about the alledged exotic East, I l Poeta upon hear ing

how the Diacono speaks about the exotic W e s t (even i f they feed

Christ ians to the l ions), is ready to explode: " M a chi è che racconta

tutte queste panzane a questa gen te" (397; "I wonde r w h o is tell ing

these people all these lies").

Eco's art of docere et delectare once again comes through bril l iantly

as we not ice how m u c h importance the author has given to d ia logues ,

epis temological models , and to the process of teaching through images ,

stories, myths , and fables. His fourth encyclopedic fiction is a

reconfirmation that his texts are a web , a ne twork , or, if you will , a

cognit ive system in which texts, names and events send us to other

texts, frames and images from our archives of knowledge . Fur thermore ,

with Baudolino we again enjoy a cultural ( intertextual) work that a l lows

us to play with the encyclopedias of knowledge .

Rocco Capozzi 234

Playing with the history of Alessandria

Eco's essay on "The Miracle of San Bernard ino" appeared in How to

Travel with a Salmon and Other essays". O n e of the h u m o r o u s

s tatements m a d e by the author deals in fact with the history of his

nat ive city. The author jok ing ly says that if one were to consul t the

Guide to the Italy of Legend and Fantasy, "you will see that the

province of Alessandria stands out thanks to its virginity. I t has no

wi tches , devils, fairies, . . . spir i ts , monsters , ghosts , caves , labyrinths , or

bur ied t r ea su re . . . " (244) . Consider ing how Borone re turns to

Alessandr ia and buries the "Gra i l " (and in so doing returns the soup

bowl to its rightful owner) inside the statue of Gagl iaudo , and h o w

Baudol ino has narrated m a n y fantastic stories about Alessandr ia and

Freder ick Barbarossa, we would have to say that Eco-Baudo l ino has

given Alessandr ia the right to be included in the Guide to the Italy of

Legend and Fantasy.

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