Baudolino

Baudolino is a 2000 novel by Italian philosopher Umberto Eco. The story follows the eponymous protagonist, Baudolino, as he travels through a mythical version of medieval Christian, twelfth-century Europe. The novel references many real historical figures and events, interpreting them through this mythical lens to expose the fantasies and anxieties that motivated and undermined medieval Europeans as they tried to survive continuous political and economic instability. The novel is classified both as a historical novel and a work of speculative fiction.

Baudolino begins in 1204. Baudolino (short for Baudolino of Alessandria) ventures to Constantinople, unaware of its recent developments: the city has been ravaged in the course of the Fourth Crusade. Baudolino meets the Greek Byzantine official Niketas Choniates and saves his life. Niketas is impressed by Baudolino’s almost supernatural command of many languages, several of which he has never heard. He asks Baudolino how he knows so many languages and demands to know whether he is part of the crusade. In response, Baudolino tells him his whole life story.

Baudolino begins with the year 1155 when he was a peasant child in Italy. Due to his wit and many talents, he was noticed and adopted by the emperor Frederick I. Frederick ensured that Baudolino received the best possible education and physical training. He was especially interested in northern Italy’s rich history of war and later traveled to Paris to become an academic. Once there, he befriended a number of famous, eccentric figures, including Robert de Boron, the Archpoet, Abdul, and Kyot, who allegedly wrote the medieval Romance poem Parzival. When he learned about Prester John, who was said to have founded a mystical kingdom, he decided to spend his life looking for it.



Next, the novel backtracks to early twelfth-century Europe. During this time, Emperor Frederick struggled to quell uprisings in northern Italy. Baudolino stepped in and proved himself as a master mediator between the Italian Empire and its unruly nation-states. He orchestrated a peace between the Emperor and Allesandria, whose leader was his own biological father. The Emperor agreed to give the town independence in exchange for its cooperation. Emperor Frederick died during the Third Crusade. The narrator alleges that he did not die in a river, as the historical record says; rather, he died in the middle of the night under mysterious circumstances during a stay at an Armenian noble’s estate. Baudolino sleuthed out the mystery but never confirmed which (if any) of his suspects killed the Emperor.

After Emperor Frederick’s death, Baudolino finally began his journey to find the Kingdom of Prester John. The odyssey lasted fifteen years. Baudolino traveled through Asia, encountering many mythological scenes, which are not related to geographical Asia. Along the way, he encountered mythical creatures, including unicorns, Blemmyes, pygmies, and skiapods, as well as eunuchs. This section draws heavily from medieval bestiaries, incorporating modern philosophy and comedy to convey ambivalence about the task of accurately depicting the medieval subject or its history.

Baudolino eventually found the Kingdom of Prester John. However, ultimately, the White Huns destroyed it. The Old Man of the Mountain enslaved Baudolino and his companions for years. They then traveled back to Constantinople and encountered the Fourth Crusade in its most brutal phase. At the novel’s end, Niketas Choniates tells Baudolino that Emperor Frederick died in a freak accident. Baudolino ends with no clear resolution to Italy’s endless strife and the violence of the Crusades; at the same time, it suggests that this period is impossible to accurately historicize.