Baudolino - Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco’s final novel, *Baudolino* (2000), is framed by the conquest of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade (1199–1204). Niketas Choniates, a high-ranking Byzantine official and chronicler, converses with his rescuer Baudolino—the foster son of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa—whose story is captivatingly interwoven with what is commonly known as the history of the West. Like Niketas, the reader learns from Baudolino about the Emperor’s conflicts with the Pope and Italian city-states, the rise of university autonomy, the origins of the Holy Grail legends, the peculiarities of the medieval worldview, and the quest for the mythical realm of Prester John in the East. Although the balance between the actual, the possible, and the impossible is significantly inverted compared to traditional historical fiction, this very shift offers a way to view reality from a different perspective. It is difficult to say whether *Baudolino* is more of an adventure novel or a compelling, thought-provoking introduction to medieval cultural history. Moreover, Eco concludes with a characteristic twist: Baudolino vanishes—taking his story with him—and Niketas, with the help of a wise advisor, decides that the tale shall not be revealed until someone appears who is an even greater liar than the master liar Baudolino himself...

Umberto Eco was born in 1932 in Alessandria, Piedmont. He is a full professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna and the head of the university's Advanced School of Humanistic Studies. Eco is an internationally renowned semiotician, essayist, and writer. He has published four novels, two of which—*The Name of the Rose* and *The Island of the Day Before*—have also been published in Estonian. *Baudolino* is his most recent novel to date.