The Rebellion in Il barone rampante

Abstract

The article aims to analyze, through the tools of semiotics, the act of misbehavior performed by Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, the protagonist of Il barone rampante by Italo Calvino (1957), and to explore how his decision to live in the trees is transformed into an educational, ethical, and aesthetic project. The rebellion against family and society, which gradually evolves into a path of free and critical self-formation, leads the protagonist to a metamorphosis and to the creation of unprecedented cultural and social codes, as well as to the establishment of new values. At the same time, the passions that drive the baron will be examined, accompanying him from the initial act of rebellion to his death. The analysis of a figure who is at once rebellious and aristocratic, intellectual and political, seeks to demonstrate how misbehavior can become a critical and creative tool for understanding the world – first by distancing oneself from it, and then by returning to it with renewed love.