250 Years of Calvino's Baron in the Trees as Anartist Metaphor

On June 15, 1767, the fictional Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, protagonist of Italo Calvino's novel 'Il barone rampante' (The Baron in the Trees), climbed into the trees and never came down. Two hundred fifty years later, writer Niccolò Lucarelli reinterprets the character as an 'anartist' avant la lettre, comparing his perspective shift to Marcel Duchamp's readymades. The novel, often classified as a children's book, is argued to contain deep Enlightenment themes, referencing Voltaire, Diderot, and Napoleon. Lucarelli suggests that in today's noisy, conformist society, climbing the 'tree of consciousness' can help rediscover freedom and critical thinking. The article was published on Artribune in 2017.