Chapter 1 Summary

Italo Calvino's "The Baron in the Trees" is the story of an Italian boy who leaves his aristocratic childhood home in favor of the expanse of adjoining trees that cover the surrounding town and countryside and lives the remainder of his life in the world he finds there. His name is Cosimo Piovasco di Rondo, and he applies his ingenious and free-thinking perspective to finding ways of continuing to learn, innovating both for the betterment of his own lifestyle and for the people who live below him, and to cultivating a one-of-a-kind, passion-filled love life. He lives at once removed from and intimately bonded with his family and fellow townspeople, and dies as creatively and note-worthily as he lived, leaving his friends and family inspired by his story.

The first chapter of the book opens with Cosimo and his family sitting down to...