Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò

Cosimo Piovasco or simply Cosimo is the protagonist in the Italian novel The Baron in the Trees (1957, Il Barone Rampante) by Italo Calvino. Cosimo climbs in a tree at the beginning of the novel and will spend the rest of his adventurous life in trees.

Family tree

Cosimo is the son of Arminio Piovasco, who has strong intentions to rule the region on the Ligurian Coast in the eighteenth-century when the regions of Italy haven't united yet.

• Grandparent: Head General of the War of Succession (father of Corradina)
  • Parents: Arminio Piovasco (father) and Corradina Von Kurtewitz (mother)
    • Children: Battista (elder sister), Cosimo, Biagio (younger brother)

Viola

At the start of the story, the reader is introduced to a lunch in the Piovasco's dining room with the family and the Courts of France. At this meal, Cosimo decides he can no longer handle living with his family, and runs outside and climbs up a live oak tree. From a branch, Cosimo promises to his angry father below that he will never return. Afterward, he travels from tree to tree, until he encounters the boundary of the garden, bordered by an enormous brick wall.

Cosimo leaps across the wall to the opposite tree and slowly decides to find a young girl, playing on a see-saw by herself, below. Cosimo discovers her name is Viola, and she claims her name is short for Violante.