Baudolino
❧ Baudolino of Alessandria — illuminated after the medieval fashion ❧ On Umberto Eco’s Novel The Art of the Beautiful Lie Humor, Wisdom & the Deeper Meanings of Baudolino T here is something wonderfully subversive about Umberto Eco writing a novel whose hero is history’s most gifted liar who eventually rides off into the sunset after getting stoned when he finally tells only truths. Baudolino , published in 2000, is many things at once — a picaresque adventure set in florid historical fiction, a philosophical comedy, a meditation on faith, and a sly wink from one of the twentieth century’s great semioticians. It is also, and this is easy to miss amid the erudition, deeply, persistently funny. The Comedy of the Sacred Absurd Eco’s humor in Baudolino is the humor of a man who knows exactly how ridiculous the Middle Ages were — and loves them anyway. Baudolino and his companions fabricate Christian letters and relics with the cheerful professionalism ...
