Eco returns to the Middle Ages with Baudolino - a wondrous, provocative,
beguiling tale of history, myth, and invention. It is April, 1204, and
Constantinople, the splendid capital of the Byzantine Empire, is being
sacked and burned by the knights of the fourth Crusade. Amid the carnage
and confusion, one Baudolino saves a Byzantine historian and high court
official from certain death at the hands of the crusading warriors, and
proceeds to tell his own fantastical story. Born a simple peasant in
northern Italy, Baudolino has two major gifts - a talent for learning
foreign languages and skill in telling lies. One day, when still a boy, he
met a foreign commander in the woods, charming him with his quick wit and
lively mind. The commander - who proves to be the emperor Frederick
Barbarossa - adopts Baudolino and sends him to the university in Paris,
where he makes a number of fearless, adventurous friends. Spurred on by
myths and their own reveries, this merry band sets out in search of Prester
John, a legendary priest-king who was said to rule over a vast kingdom in
the East - a phantasmagorical land of strange creatures with eyes on their
shoulders and mouths on their stomachs, of eunuchs, unicorns, and lovely
maidens. As always with Eco, this abundant novel includes dazzling
digressions, outrageous tricks, pages of extraordinary feeling and poetry,
and vicarious reflections on our postmodern age. Baudolino is an utterly
marvellous tale by the inimitable author of THE NAME OF THE ROSE.