THAT HISTORY WHICH IS NOT IN

UMBERTO Eco's BAUDOLINO

ust before the release of Baudolino, Umberto Eco's fourth novel, ajour-
J nalist from Rome's La Repubblica newspaper, Laura Lilli, interviewed
the writer and posed an interesting questiono Given Eco' s unpredictable
nature, the answer he gave was intriguing and entertaining at the same time.
Lilli asked Eco whether or not Baudolino the protagonist was an "egregious
liar." To this Eco replied: "Eh, sì. Inventa sempre fandonie, ma ogni volta
tutti ci credono, e le sue fandonie producono la grande storia. In fondo
rileggo la storia di quel periodo come frutto delle invenzioni di un ragazzi-
no, che poi cresce e con una banda di amici inventa la legittimazione
dell'impero da parte dei giuristi bolognesi, parte dell'epistolario di Abelar-
do ed Eloisa, la leggenda del Graal come sarà poi raccontata da Wolfram
von Eschenbach."l The fact that Baudolino is a skillfulliar constitutes a
challenge to the reader, and such a challenge, with alI its encompassing
facets, is also what urged me to write this papero Baudolino is portrayed as
a manipulator of the great-event history in order to make other things hap-
pen that will consequently prove to be more important than history itself.
In the nove1 the reader is constantly reminded of this intention, as well as
ofwhat is less discemible in history and historiography. In this study I shall
discuss Baudolino's reason for manipulating history, his notion ofhistory
and historiography, and finally utopia as a machine for creating the "princi-
pIe of reality."
Before we embark on our specific discussion pertaining to the points
listed above, let us briefly review the novel's plot. Here Eco tells the story
of Baudolino from his adolescence to adulthood. As a young boy, he is
adopted by a German knight who had gotten lost in a thick fog near the
Bormida and Tanaro riverso The stranger is not only a knight, he is the Holy
Emperor Frederick I, also known as Frederick Barbarossa. The boy's natu-
ral father, Aulario, is happy to let the German knight adopt his son because
it relieves him of the worries of bringing up the child. Frederick adopts
Baudolino and the boy lives with him until Barbarossa dies. The young
boy's early education is entrusted to Otto of Freising, bishop of Freising
(Baveria) and abbot ofthe Cistercian monastery ofMorimond in Burgundy.
When Otto dies in 1158, Baudolino goes to study in Paris where he lives the

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394 RAFFAELE DE BENEDICTIS

life of a goliard with his close friends, the Poet and Abdul. In Paris he hears
for the first time about the legend of Prester J ohn, a N estorian high priest
and also the king of a mysterious orientaI kingdom. For Baudolino and his
friends, such a story is so enchanting that he is inspired to write an apocry-
phalletter ofPrester John addressed to Frederick Barbarossa. The apocry-
phalletter wilIlater become an instrument of imperial propaganda aimed at
depicting a model ruler who is a priest and a king at the same time. Clearly,
the intent of such a letter was to find a solution in the conflict between the
Empire and the Papacy. After Baudolino's letter, other apocryphalletters
ofPrester John began to circuIate because people believed he was the de-
scendant ofthe Magi. AlI these letters, supposedly written by Prester John,
served almost as an investiture in the political game played among Byzan-
tium, Rome, and the court of Frederick Barbarossa. Upon his retum from
Paris, Baudolino becomes Frederick' s counselor and advises him in his
Italian political campaigns against the Lombard League and the siege of
Alessandria. In the expedition of the third Crusade, Frederick is always
accompanied by Baudolino, whose only reason for taking part in the Cru-
sade is to get closer to, and eventualIy to discover, the kingdom ofPrester
John. Halfway through the expedition, Frederick dies under very unusual
circumstances and the scenario of events reflects a classical topos of the
mystery story: he is murdered in a room that was bolted from the inside, and
the only person in the room was the emperor himself. From this point on,
historical references give way to fantastic adventures, very dear to the col-
lective imagination of the Middle Ages. Baudolino' s story is also enriched
by three great loves, namely the re1ationship with his stepmother and Freder-
ick's wife Beatrice of Burgundy, with Colandrina of Alessandria whom
Baudolino finalIy marries, and with an ipazia, a creature half woman and
half goat. Obviously he never finds the kingdom of Prester John and is
forced to retum to his point of(narrative) departure vis-à-vis his interlocutor
Nicetas Choniates. In the end Baudolino becomes a stylite and after dwelI-
ing for a number of days on a column in Constantinople, finalIy decides to
embark on another joumey, a very daring and originaI decision, at which
point he "disappears far away, ... going [again] toward the kingdom ofPrest-
er John."
W e may begin by dealing with the first point, Baudolino' s reason for
manipulating history, and in so doing, it is important to discuss, from the
outset, the reasons that determine the manipulation of history based on the
novel's textual substantiation. To a noticeable degree, we may argue that

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THAT HISTORY WHICH IS NOT IN UMBERTO Eco's BAUDOLINO 395

they are fundamentally two, and epistemologically identifiable as non-con-

scious and conscious generating forces. The non-conscious force allows
historians to recreate, only apparently, past events as history of past history
which, in reality, is only an effort to produce history' s hope1ess authentica-
tion. In fact, "Il bisogno pratico, che è nel fondo di ogni giudizio storico,
conferisce a ogni storia il carattere di 'storia contemporanea', perché, per
remoti e remotissimi che sembrino cronologicamente i fatti che vi entrano,
essa è, in realtà, storia sempre riferita al bisogno e alla situazione presente,
nella quale quei fatti propagano le loro vibrazioni."2 Such a statement is an
indication of the underlying process engaged in recording historical events.
Croce is certainly correct in stating that every true history is de facto "con-
temporary history" and that the past is a present construct generated by the
very vibrations of historical events or facts being recorded. In this way, as
Alan B. Spitzer argues, "historians constitute a new reality rather than rep-
resent a past one.,,3 Any forrn of past event is relived in the present through
a narrative process which motivates the historian to pick up the pen and
write about it. Further, not only does the historian establish a new reality
about the past but sets also new interpretative patterns that contribute to
change the present as well. The activation of the so-called non-conscious
force brings forth an awareness which is applicable to any historical method
and difficult to challenge in terrns ofboth practical and theoretical princi-
ples insofar as we deal essentially with "historical relativism [that] is itself
historically relative.,,4 How is the non-conscious force engaged in Baudo-
lino 's narrative composition? A clear example of historical relativism to-
gether with the predominance of non-conscious force occurs when Baudoli-
no tells Nicetas that he, with his usual mischievous tricks, had scraped off
part of the content of Otto' s Chronicle causing an unexpected, surprising
result. Baudolino says:

"Forse tu fai così, signor Niceta, ma il buon Ottone no, e io ti dico solo
come sono andate le cose. Così quel santo uomo da una parte riscriveva
la Chronica, dove il mondo andava male, e dall'altra le Gesta, dove il
mondo non poteva che andare sempre meglio. Tu dirai: si contraddice-
va. Fosse solo questo. È che io sospetto che nella prima versione della
Chronica, il mondo andasse ancora più male, e che per non contraddirsi
troppo, a mano a mano che riscriveva la Chronica, Ottone sia diventato
più indulgente con noi poveri uomini. E questo l'ho provocato io, grat-
tando via la prima versione. Forse se restava quella, Ottone non aveva

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396 RAFFAELE DE BENEDICTIS

il coraggio di scrivere le Gesta, e siccome è per via di queste Gesta che

domani si dirà che cosa Federico ha fatto e non ha fatto, se io non
grattavo via la prima Chronica finiva che Federico non aveva fatto tutto
quello che diciamo che ha fatto.,,5

In B audo lino 's view, when Otto rewrote his Chronicle, he rewrote what the
new circumstances prompted him to write, certainly maintaining a structural
coherence of the historical account, yet not necessarily the truthful version
of past events. Moreover, the new circumstances also stimulated him to
write Frederick' s Exploits (Gesta Friderici) as well as the Chronic1e. This
new reality demonstrates that there can be no objective standards ofhistori-
cal truth. What there is, instead, is a subliminal, non-conscious force con-
stantly recreating the past through the impulse of the manipulative exigen-
cies of the thinking subject, derived from his or her innate ever-changing
predisposition vis-à-vis reallife and its countless experiences. Even though
we cannot c1ear1y separate or draw specific boundaries between a non-con-
scious and a conscious act, we can certainly assert that what Otto rewrote
had nothing to do with an intentional manipulation of the content of his
Chronicle; yet the content was manipulated anyway simply because
Baudolino had scraped off the previous writing, and the new content that
Otto wrote had to take into account new contemporary and different circum-
stances. This is something that permits us to speak only of non-conscious
manipulation. In fact, in this regard, Baudolino tells Nicetas: " .. .ifI had not
scraped off the first Chronicle, perhaps Frederick would not have done
everything we say he did." The result of the Chronicle is therefore moti-
vated by the fact that Baudolino scraped off the first Chronicle and not by
a calculated act by the bishop himself. The act is a conscious one only from
Baudolino' s perspective because he willingly scraped and rewrote informa-
tion in order to make new situations rise for reasons that we will examine
later in this paper. Aiso from a philosophical and linguistic standpoint, the
criticaI reader cannot fail to acknowledge echos of Heidegger and Derrida
in relation to the first chapter of the novel in which the author emphasizes
the presence of signs under erasure. These echos however, and the whole
issue of signs under erasure, do not necessarily constitute a shared theoreti-
cal ground between Eco and Heidegger, Eco and Derrida. Instead, what Eco
tries to do with those parts of the novel he puts under erasure has a twofold
purpose: on the one hand he emphasizes obviously the hesitant level of
literacy ofBaudolino, as well as his ironic nature which, in turn, is also the

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THAT RISTORY WHICH IS NOT IN UMBERTO Eco's BAUDOLINO 397

shadow of Eco' s irony and quite c1early his statement about the ironic
scheme of the post-modem novel. In the post-script to The Name of the
Rose he said:

... La risposta post-moderna al moderno consiste nel riconoscere che il

passato, visto che non può essere distrutto, perché la sua distruzione
porta al silenzio, deve essere rivisitato: con ironia, in modo non
innocente. Penso all'atteggiamento post-moderno come a quello di chi
ami una donna, molto colta, e che sappia che non può dirle "ti amo
disperatamente", perché lui sa che lei sa (e che lei sa che lui sa) che
queste frasi le ha già scritte Liala. Tuttavia c'è una soluzione. Potrà dire:
"Come direbbe Liala, ti amo disperatamente". A questo punto, avendo
evitata la falsa innocenza, avendo detto chiaramente che non si può più
parlare in modo innocente, costui avrà però detto alla donna ciò che
voleva derle: che la ama, ma che la ama in un'epoca d'innocenza per-
duta. Se la donna sta al gioco, avrà ricevuto una dichiarazione d'amore,
ugualmente. Nessuno dei due interlocutori si sentirà innocente, entrambi
avranno accettato la sfida del passato, del già detto che non si può
eliminare, entrambi giocheranno coscientemente e con piacere al gioco
dell'ironia... Ma entrambi saranno riusciti ancora una volta a parlare
d'amore.
Ironia, gioco metalinguistico, enunciazione al quadrato. Per cui se,
col moderno, chi non capisce il gioco non può che rifiutarlo, col
post-moderno è anche possibile non capire il gioco e predere le cose sul
serio. Che è poi la qualità (il rischio) dell'ironia. 6

Ironic, in fact, is the whole kronica Baudolini, and the reason why Eco
keeps under erasure with non se ne fa negott is representative of such an
irony and constitutes only the immediate intention of the text. On the other
hand, the fact that Eco puts erased words in the text should prompt the
reader to look for c1ues that go beyond the most obvious, ironical, or more
certainly playful intention of the author. Rere the Italian semiotician is
hinting at the possibility that we, first-Ievel readers, can become also sec-
ond-Ievel readers or criticaI readers. This means that the immediate indica-
tions revealing Baudolino's hesitant literacy and his peasant socio-cultural
background, that even a first level reader can easily catch on, challenges the
textual competence ofthe criticaI reader on a metalinguistic level and even-
tually allowing him/her to go beyond what is obvious in the text. In order
to do so the text requires a criticaI reader, and given the detailed and sophis-

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398 RAFFAELE DE BENEDICTIS

ticated textual competence of such a reader, the words Eco puts under era-
sure cannot but point in the direction of Heidegger and Derrida in order to
arrive, ultimately, at the Peircean's principle of unlimited semiosis. The
Heideggerian view of crossed intersected lines is the only way for the Ger-
man philosopher to conceive and to legitimize the reality ofBeing linguisti-
cally.

A thoughtful glance ahead into this realm of "Being" can only write it
as Being. The drawing of these crossed lines at first only wards off
[abwehrt] , especially the habit of conceiving "Being" as something
standing by itself.... The sign of crossing through [Zeichen der Durch-
kreuzung] can, to be sure, ... not be a merely negative sign of crossing out
[Zeichen der Durchstreichung]. ...Man in his essence is the memory [or
"memorial," Gediichtnis] of Being, but of Being. This means that the
essence of man is a part of that which in the crossed intersected lines of
Being puts thinking under the claim of a more originary command. 7

Heidegger here, in addition to the more philosophical exposition, points out

that erasure, or as he calls it "crossed intersected lines" will necessarily
cause a transformation of a language and, consequently, require a trans-
formed relationship among its elements and, these latter ones, in relation to
the essence of language itself. Language needs to cross the "criticaI zone"
so that it can be present even metaphisically. The representation oflanguage
cannot be conceived and represented as simple nominalism because, if this
were the case, it would still be "entangled in the logico-grammatical con-
ception of the nature of language." (71) Language is certainly present
through its nominalism, yet, in order to make its essence present, it has to
move beyond the nominalistic frontier, it has to cross what Heidegger calls
the "criticaI zone", so that "Being present reveals a being in relation to es-
sence." This means that language must be considered as a Gestalt, as a
unified whole, greater than, or different from, all its parts. To explain such
a philosophical insight of language, Heidegger introduces the devi ce of
"crossed intersected lines." In this way, he is able to assert that language,
in its totality cannot but be expressed as Being, as a trascendental relation-
ship between "Being in repose" and "changeable being."
It is from Heidegger that Derrida inherited the concept of sous rature,
(under erasure) and applied it to language as that which is at once affirmed
and questioned, or as a process of constant displacement. To de fine such a

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THAT HISTORY WHICH IS NOT IN UMBERTO Eco's BAUDOLINO 399

proeess Derrida ereated the expression la différance, purposefully mis-

spelled with an a instead of an e "to refer simultaneously to the relatively
passive' spaeial' Saussurean sense of differenee as eonstitutive of signifiea-
tion, and to an aetive temporal proeess of produeing differenee through
deferment in time.,,8 Eco' s intention in Baudolino is somewhat similar, and
being himself a trained semiotieian, eannot but view language as a semiotie
game having indeterminate substitutions and "an infinite ehain ofunstable
re-signifieation within a boundless eontext of intertextuality." (24) F or Eco
too, therefore, the erased words fulfil this very proeess, the proeess of the
"undeeidable altemation between strueture and what is repressed by it."
(24t Nevertheless, there is also the possibility, as a reader of my article
brought to my attention, that "the erasure in Baudolino seem... to be an
ironie referenee to the Derridean projeet." I eertainly would not exclude
sueh a possibility. In faet, given the pertinenee of this remark, I think it
deserves an entire study that deals with both the ironie referenee to Derrida
and the post-modem traits the novel seems to display. In this article how-
ever, I will briefly toueh upon another possibility of sign under erasure and,
for what I ean extrapolate from the text, I believe that Eeo's pIan here is a
semiotie one. By putting words under erasure most likely he tries to bring
to the fore the Peireean theory of unlimited semiosis whieh ultimately is
also his semiotie theory of language.
It is clearly reeognizable that Eco is eonsistent with Derrida as far as
eonsidering a text as a play of presenee and absenee. In faet, it is suffieient
to simply make referenee to the metaphorieal distinetion of language to
make this point unequivoeal. Consistent with the Freneh philosopher is also
on the principle of "unlimited shifting from symbol to symbol," in a way
that "the meaning of a text is always postponed." However, what sets Eco
apart from Derrida is the different interpretation of the Peireean idea of
unlimited semiosis. While Derrida's interpretation ofPeiree leads toward a
"deeonstruetion of the transeendental signified,"l0 something that outlines
"a semiosis ofinfinite play, of differenee, ofthe infinite whirl ofinterpreta-
tion," Eco, on the other hand, informs the reader that it is prudent to start
from obvious truths to arrive to reasonable textual objeetivity. To this r'e-
gard he speaks ofbeginning from "zero-degree meaning, the one authori71ed
by the dullest and simplest of the existing dietionaries, the one authorlzed
by the state of a given language in a given historieal moment, the on'e that
every member of a eommunity ofhealthy native speakers eannot deny."ll
At this point Eco antieipates a foreseeable objeetion: the metaphorleal use

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400 RAFFAELE DE BENEDICTIS

oflanguage. To this he adds: "Every sentence can be interpreted metaphori-

cally: even the assertion John eats an appIe every morning can be inter-
preted as 'John repeats Adam' s sin every day.' But in order to support such
an interpretation, everybody must take for granted that appIe means a given
fruit, that Adam is intended as the first man, and that, according to our
biblical competence, Adam ate a forbidden fruit." (36-37) What Eco is
trying to tell us here is that even though a text is a machine to generate
countless interpretations, it does not necessarily mean that any interpreta-
tion is correct. In order to recognize a correct interpretation from a rather
impressionistic one, we must come to terms with the "principle of
contextuality: something [that] can be truly asserted within a given universe
of discourse and under a given description." (37) The Peircean unlimited
semiosis "is potentially unlimited from the point ofview ofthe system but
is not unlimited from the point ofview ofthe process." (28) This assertion
is also that which contradicts Derrida's unlimited relationships among
things. To this regard Eco says:

Let me take an example of hermetic semiosis defeated by a thinker

who acted as Peirce would have acted. One ofthe most celebrated Her-
metic arguments was this: the plant orchis has the same form ofhuman
testic1es; therefore not only does orchis stand for testic1es but also every
operation accomplished on the plant can get a result on the human body.
The hermetic argument went further indeed: a relationship of resem-
blance was established not only between the plant and the testic1es but
also between both and other elements of the fumiture of the macro- and
microcosrn, so that, by means of different rhetorical relationships (such
as similarity, past or present contiguity, and so on), everyone of these
elernents could stand for an act upon every other.
The objection raised by Francis Bacon (Parasceve ad Historiam -
Naturalem et Experimentalem, 1620) was the following: one must dis-
tinguish between a relationship of causality and a relationship of sirni-
larity. The roots of orchis are morphologically similar to male testicles,
but the reason for which they have the same form is different. Being
genetically different, the roots of orchis are also functionally different
from male testic1es. Therefore the two phenornena can be interpreted as
morphologically analogous, but their analogy stops within the universe
of discourse of morphology and cannot be extended into other universes
of discourse.
Peirce would have added that, if the interpretation of the roots of
orchis as testic1es does not produce a practical habit allowing the inter-

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THAT HISTORY WHICH IS NOT IN UMBERTO Eco's BAUDOLINO 401

preters to operate successful1y according to the interpretation, the pro-

cess of semiosis has failed. In the same sense, one is entitled to try the
most daring abduction, but if an abduction is not legitimated by further
practical tests, the hypothesis cannot be entertained any longer. (29)

The example provided by the citation above is finally able to complete the
picture (even though we left out Eco' s theory of codes) of similarities and
differences between Eco and Derrida. At this stage the reader is in the posi-
tion to retum to the opening remark ofEco's substantiation ofthe Peircean
idea of unlimited semiosis and ask: After such an explanation, what is the
relationship between Derrida' s notion of signs under erasure and the pres-
ence of sporadic crossed out words in the Kronica Baudlini? Eco uses the
artifice of words under erasure to bring to the fore his semiotic notion of
text and meaning conceived quite c1ear1y as a sort of unlimited semiosis,
whose signs produce their referents as mental images, and these latter ones,
become signs themselves and so on in a series of shared contextual relation-
ships. However, in this process of deferral a "sign is something by knowing
which we know something more.,,12 Eco remains consistent with Peirce on
this point and the words we find crossed out in Baudolino are an indication
of added meaning to the text and context. Therefore, the crossed line on
various words must not be taken as a simple deletion of the word itse1f, but
as a further presence of meaning legitimized by the text and its universe of
discourse. In this way, the erased words (even though they are erased, but
because they are there) acquire a meaning since they work as regular signs
and such signs produce their interpretants as much as other non-erased
words found in the text. Being there under erasure is not the same thing of
being absent, the presence of words under erasure cannot be treated as
nothingness. Eco uses such an artifice to give more textual visibility to the
Peircean idea of unlimited semiosis seen as a process of added meaning .
Another indicator that points in the direction of the non-conscious
effect are those instances in which Baudolino constant1y reminds the reader
of his lies. Throughout the novel the need to acknowledge Baudolino's
high-minded gift for lying is great and skillfully treated by Eco. Lying in
the nove l is, first of all, a way of demonstrating historical relativism and
historical utopia; however, the reader leams also that lying undergoes an
intriguing metamorphosis that explains how a liar (Baudolino) can become
the victim of his own lies without even realizing it. In order to understand
this phenomenon we need to refer to the dynamics ofthe narrative machine,

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402 RAFFAELE DE BENEDICTIS

because it is through the narrative machine, through the communicative

medium that lies are disseminated. As a matter offact, such a point is textu-
ally justified and comes from Baudolino himself: "Tanto, pensavo, qualun-
que cosa dica, è vera perché l'ho detta ... " (41). With this assertion the
young man provides enough c1ues to stimulate the reader to reflect on the
inaccessibility of truth. In fact what we consider truth is simply possible
interpretations that create the "principle ofreality." On this point we cannot
neglect to notice Borges' echo of his short stories. The Argentinian writer
had a rather similar view about possible realities: "That which can be
thought is possible." With Wittgenstein the existence of a meaning, even
pointing to a fictitious referent, is possible provided that one is able to cre-
ate and maintain its rhetorical paradigm:

"Something red can be destroyed, but red cannot be destroyed, and

that is why the meaning of the word 'red' is independent of the exis-
tence of a red thing." -Certainly it makes no sense to say that the col-
our red is tom up or pounded to bits. But don't we say "The red is van-
ishing"? And don't clutch at the idea of our always being able to bring
red before our mind's eye even when there is nothing red any more.
That is just as if you chose to say that there would stilI always be a
chemical reaction producing a red flame. -For suppose you cannot
remember the colour any more? -When we forget which colour this is
the name of, it loses its meaning for us; that is, we are no 10nger able to
play a particular language game with it. And the situation then is com-
parable with that in which we have 10st a paradigm which was an instru-
ment of our language. 13

The paradigm Wittgenstein alludes to is, as anticipated above, a rhetorical

one. For it is able to bring together meaningfully the naming of an object or
an idea with a corresponding archetype. The archetype, in tum, is that
which permits the playing of a "language game" by allowing its primitive
referent to be used as a primitive referent and as a host-referent for other
possible referents, such as metaphorical or parasitic, as Wittgenstein himself
calls it. This means that words can create possible realities even if, at times,
such realities are fictitious. For example we have the word unicorn whose
referent is a beast, "usually having the head and body of a horse, the hind
legs of antelope, the tail of a lion (sometimes horse's tail), sometimes the
beard of a goat, and as its chief feature a long, sharp, twisted hom, similar
to the narwhal's tusk, set in the middle of its forehead." This is its most

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THAT HISTORY WHICH IS NOT IN UMBERTO Eco's BAUDOLINO 403

common description. However, the question that remains to be answered is:

Has ever anyone seen a unicom before, even from the earliest description
attributed to the Greek physician Ctesias to our modem times? The answer
is obviously "no" because the unicom is a fabled beast, an animaI that exists
only in the imagination of people. N otwithstanding this, we can provide a
referent for it and, therefore, an image for which we possess its paradigm.
Such a paradigm, in tum, is possible because fashioned, by extension, on
that ofthe rhinoceros, narwhal, goat, etc. allowing a fictitious actualization
of its meaning or, simply put, allowing one to construct a fictitious creature
as rea!.
In comparing what we have just stated above with the protagonist of
Eco' s novel, one may argue that Baudolino is very much aware of his lies
and the game he is playing. This is somewhat axiomatically true. However,
his lies don't stop at the very act oflying, but go a step further, they reach
the point in which Baudolino is not able to recognize what is true from what
is false based on his own recollection and interpretation ofreality. He tries
to convey exact1y this when he says: "Signor Niceta, il problema della mia
vita è che io ho sempre confuso quello che vedevo e quello che desideravo
vedere ... " (35) To this Nicetas replies: "Accade a molti." Baudolino then
continues: "Sai, signor Niceta, quando tu dici una cosa che hai immaginato,
e gli altri ti dicono che è proprio cosÌ, finisci per crederci anche tu." (35-6).
Finally the non-conscious force culminates and ultimately prevails as a
narrative voice when Baudolino, in the very last pages of the novel, is stilI
convinced that Otto was not lying about the existence of the Kingdom of
Prester John because, for Baudolino, he was "la voce della tradizione." And
his conviction is such that, not surprisingly: "Niceta lo vide sparire lontano,
che agitava ancora la mano, ma senza voltarsi, dritto dritto verso il regno
del Prete Giovanni." (524)
Even though the non-conscious force prevails in the end, the reader
cannot fai! to recognize that Baudolino always upholds a level of conscious-
ness as far as the intentional manipulation ofhistory is concemed, which is
viewed as a possible, and many times, widespread and ca1culated aspiration.
His lies serve the purpose of c1arifying and explaining the manipulation of
certain historical events that can be defined as consciously motivated. The
reader who carefully maps out Baudolino' s character development soon
realizes that he (Baudolino) portrays not only what is most obvious about
him, a ludicrous and sly boy who takes pleasure in lying only for the sake
of lying, but particularly what is less noticeable in his persona. What is

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404 RAFFAELE DE BENEDICTIS

disguised in Baudolino is the historical critic who tries to put into perspec-
tive the dynamic forces that dominate history in its making. Eco' s approach
appears to be paradoxical, yet objectively accurate. For it conforrns to the
complexity ofthe text since paradox constitutes one ofits linguistic devices.
As the reader digests the many events scattered in the 526 pages of the
novel, he or she wiU soon realize that it is very originaI and somewhat
exceptional to propose an awareness ofhistorical truth based on the strategy
of lying for the sake of telling the truth.
Baudolino' s intentional falsification ofhistory acquires even the char-
acteristic of a ludicrous irony. When the clumsy Rahewino continues to
write the Gesta Friderici on Otto's request, Baudolino mischievously sug-
gests that the naive canon include some important titles to give more em-
phasis and authorship to the Gesta. In fact, Rahewino, without realizing that
the young rascal is teasing him, includes idiotic and colorful non-existing
titles such as: the De optimitate triporum, an Ars honeste petandi, a De
modo cacandi, etc .. (Baudolino, 90) This is certainly a gratuitous taste of
Baudolino' s Frascheta upbringing which inforrns the reader that there can
be a myriad of reasons for digressing from historical facts. This example is
only an extreme one, yet its occurrence is quite possible, as there have been
and continue to be situations more extreme than this one.
On a more serious tone, the novel does not lack ponderous examples
of deliberate manipulation. One example that describes very well a propen-
sity rather enticing and commonly found in history is somewhat similar to
what Otto suggests to Baudolino:

" ... Se tu vuoi diventare uomo di lettere, e scrivere magari un giorno

delle Istorie, devi anche mentire, e inventare delle storie, altrimenti la
tua Istoria diventerebbe monotona. Ma dovrai farlo con moderazione. Il
mondo condanna i bugiardi che non fanno altro che mentire, anche sulle
cose infime, e premia i poeti, che mentono solo sulle cose grandissi-
me.,,14

W orth noting here is also the remark made by the wise man from Byzan-
tium, Pafnutius, whose advice leads the reader in the same direction. In the
document summary, Nicetas has to write about the very last days ofByzan-
tium, so he thinks it is a go od idea to ask Pafnutius for his opinion. Nicetas
asks him:

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THAT HISTORY WHICH IS NOT IN UMBERTO Eco's BAUDOLINO 405

" ... Dove collecherò la storia che mi ha raccontato Baudolino?"

Da nessuna parte. È una storia tutta sua. E poi, sei sicuro che sia ve-
ra?"
"No, tutto quello che ne so, l'ho appreso da lui, come da lui ho ap-
preso che era un mentitore."
"Vedi dunque," disse il saggio Pafnuzio, "che uno scrittore di Istorie
non può prestare fede a una testimonianza così incerta. Cancella
Baudolino dal tuo racconto."
"Ma almeno gli ultimi giorni abbiamo avuto una storia in comune,
nella casa dei genovesi."
"Cancella anche i genovesi, altrimenti dovresti dire delle reliquie
che fabbricavano, e i tuoi lettori perderebbero la fede nelle cose più sa-
cre. Ti ci vorrà poco ad alterare leggermente gli eventi, dirai che sei
stato aiutato dai veneziani. Sì, lo so, non è la verità, ma in una grande
Istoria si possono alterare delle piccole verità perché ne risalti la verità
più grande.,,15

Such topoi are not sporadic occurrences found in the text as isolated seman-
tic aggregates, but they are relevant narrative sequences that repeatedly
emphasize history's manifold scopes, interests, and political implications.
In alI such sequences, history is primarily a discursive modus operandi, a
way of recording events, a narrative simulation of human ventures and,
therefore, what we can commonly calI intentional and non-intentional ma-
nipulation of reality.
The point discussed above is conducive to what we mean by the terms
history and historiography. In a generaI sense, and as we commonly know,
history is a formaI record or study of past events. Which past events? The
New Oxford English Dictionary includes also the adjective "important" in
the definition. Yes, but important according to what? The two questions
bring to mind the way in which formaI records of past events have been
handed down to posterity in the course of centuries. In fact, they alIow us
to make some inferences based on the view that: 1. the records of past
events can occasionalIy be accurate for certain things and in certain situa-
tions and require the indispensable presence of a historian; 2. past events
included in historical records conform to human arbitrariness; 3. Human
arbitrariness employed in the production ofhistorical records can be influ-
enced by the historians' political, intellectual, and cultural predisposition.
Even though past events can occasionalIy be accurate for certain aspects,
they are, nevertheless, fallacious in others due to the fact that there is no

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406 RAFFAELE DE BENEDICTIS

historical method or approach capable of giving an omniscient vista to that

which is being recorded; in other words, history cannot be re-lived, it can
only be told. Moreover, what the historian tries to signify is contingent upon
the principle of human arbitrariness that is not groundless, but very well
aimed and wide in scope; a scope that is consistent with what Pafnutious
suggests Nicetas to do: "alterare delle piccole verità perché ne risalti la
verità più grande." Without forgetting, however, that any form ofhistorical
manipulation would de facto condition the result of any recorded event. By
manipulating information, Baudolino tells the reader that the outcome of
such a manipulation is also a powerful tool capable of producing a new
reality which is motivated and structured by the fictitious new textual aggre-
gates that orient the writer, and consequent1y, the reader in a new direction
as a prefiguration offurther "possible worlds." In addition, these "possible
worlds" must be understood in terms of modallogic or textual semiotics.
This means that the two disciplines look at the way in which a particular
world is textually possible over another because it can be structurally veri-
fied or that it is structurally possible. 16 In other words, if Otto chooses to
re-write his Chronicle in a much different way than he originally wrote it,
and, in addition to the Chronicle, he even ends up writing a Gesta, he is
motivated by Baudolino' s scratching and filling in other information in the
originaI Chronicle. In this respect, what Baudolino does constitutes a con-
scious stimulus and the beginning of a new possible world which Otto
inadvertent1y develops based on the textual condition Baudolino sets a
priori.
The desire to inform the reader about the difference between history
and historiography is what we can calI textual intention. In the novel,
Baudolino in particular, is consistent1y focused on producing textual se-
quences that make lying a point of reference in which a meta-text is con-
cealed and whose specific competence is to c1arify what we mean by the
term history and historiography. In fact, why does Baudolino repeatedly and
deliberately tell the reader (criticaI reader) that he is a liar? Does he tell the
reader that he is a liar simply because he takes pleasure in lying? We can
say that the nove l is a triumph oflies whose specific aim is to fulfil a rigor-
ous rhetorical function vis-à-vis history. Baudolino is not a typical picaroon,
he is not a Pinocchio-like character who likes to telllies for the sake of
lying: he lies in order to ensure the smooth unfolding ofhistory and its good
end. Lying is an outstanding characteristic remarkably reiterated throughout
the 526 pages of the novel. It is a narrative tool that invites the reader to

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THAT HISTORY WHICH IS NOT IN UMBERTO Eco's BAUDOLINO 407

reassess history and historiography. Eco' s approach in this respect is some-

what paradoxical because he uses lying as an instrument oftruth. The para-
dox becomes even greater when we realize that Baudolino, a liar, is telling
his past adventures to a famous Byzantine historian (by trade and reputation
an authority of truth), Nicetas Choniates. What is amazing is that, in the
end, Nicetas himselfviews reality in the same way that Baudolino had been
viewing it since he was a young boy: " Sì, lo so, [quello che scrivo] non è
la verità, ma in una grande Istoria si possono alterare delle piccole verità
perché ne risalti la verità più grande." (Baudolino 525) Humanity's re-
corded past, as Baudolino constantly reminds us, is a concealed lie. History
exists only as an event in process, that is, as an act in its unfolding stage, it
has neither past nor future, it is what it is in its very act of becoming: it is
always an absent "present", never a present "past." It is what Croce calls:
"un diveniente, un processo in corso, perché fatti immobili non si ritrovano
né si concepiscono nel mondo della realtà."1? Is Baudolino's manipulation
ofthe Chronica history? Yes, it certainly is, but only in so far as Baudolino
scratches and rewrites information in it. 18 History, as alait accompli and
seen as a point of view in retrospect, is an ingenious illusion, something that
Eco describes through the artifice of lies. Conversely, what the historian
records about past events is historiographic, it is what he/she says about the
past. Yet, for the historian that very act of recording the past can be called
history because it becomes one thing with his/her thought and inner experi-
ence.
Now, reflecting more specifically on the empirical state ofhistoriogra-
phy, the critic cannot avoid Croce's pertinent questions: "Si potrà mai
radicalmente strappare dalla storia la possibilità delle falsificazioni e stabili-
re con sicurezza il vero? Chi mai la preserverà [storia] dalle abili e verisimi-
li e coerenti favole, appoggiate a testimoni che si reputano fededegni? Chi
ribatterà con argomenti perentorì i sospetti che possono investire ogni docu-
mento e ogni narrazione pel solo fatto che sono cose pratiche e altri può
averle manipolate pei suoi fini particolari?"19 We may answer these ques-
tions by acknowledging Giambattista Vico' s modem historical thought,
which claimed to have overcome the probable from the truthful based on the
principle ofthe "verum" as the "ipsum factum". Vico's principle, however,
neglects to take into account the ways in which human beings act upon
history. The question, therefore, is rather a question of method and should
ask whether a historical fact is true insofar as it exists or insofar as it au-
thenticates the originaI form in which it manifested itself. From a historio-

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408 RAFFAELE DE BENEDICTIS

graphic point of view, the answer to such a question can only be that a
historical fact is true in so far as it exists, and that it is probable that it be the
way it is. Something or someone, in order to exist, doesn 't necessarily have
to be physicalIy present, but it can exist as a simple abstract referent, as the
outcome of a semiotic operation carried out on the iconic component of a
language. In this way, something can exist as long as it can be thought, as
long as we can provide an image for it, and, therefore, a meaning based on
the competence of our intellectual and cultural encyclopedia. In this regard,
Eco' s novel has copious examples. In fact he talks about strange creatures
that people have never and wilI never see, creatures such as: unicorns, sa-
tyrs-that-one-never-sees, Ipazie, blemmi, panozi, sciapodi, Roq birds, Pre-
ster John, etc .. Yet alI of them exist because they have been linguisticalIy
created and therefore legitimized so much so that the reader is able to sup-
ply a factitious referent which shares common atlributes with some other
referents that are part of his/her encyclopedic competence. By inventing,
therefore, Eco creates a principle of reality that can be acknowledged
historiographicalIy.
In the novel, the creation of non-existing worlds through the narrative
description of strange creatures and fictitious places, cannot be justified
without dealing with literary utopia as the guiding idea that enables Baudo-
lino to construct worlds having a deferred possibility of concretization.
Echos of classical utopian ideas are quite noticeable. For example, the PIa-
toni c empirical impossibility to have an ideaI city remarked in Republic IX,
591 b, Thomas More's little hope to see realized, de facto, "many things"
that are the "Commonwealth of Utopia", and certainly the welI-known
medieval Land of Cockaigne, an imaginary country "where life was a con-
tinuaI round ofluxurious idleness." And finalIy Prester John and his imagi-
nary kingdom. In view of these statements, literary utopia is not an action
program aiming at the concreteness of the "here and now", but it is rather
a fruitful perspective that stimulates the mind and alIows it to engage in an
intellectual process that does not preclude an if and when the proposed idea
wilI find its empirical manifestation. Instead, it limits itself to indicate the
path to take in order to evaluate the "state of things", and, in addition, it
aims at reforming their way ofbeing based on the criticaI reason that cannot
be satisfied with definite ends, but satisfied insofar as it is able to transcend
itself continuously and capable of producing new literal and semantic reali-
ties. This condition, on the other hand, should not constitute a pretext to
de fine literary utopia as a practice of improbable intellectual evasions, but

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THAT HISTORY WHICH IS NOT IN UMBERTO Eco's BAUDOLINO 409

it is, again, a deferred actualization by which, in Baudolino, the Holy Grail

will never meet the possibility ofbecoming concrete, as much as the king-
dom of Prester John will never be actualized. The utopian thought is the
horizon within which human beings express metaphorically the real through
the medium oflanguage which (this latter one) is not real. Literary utopia,
as a metaphor of the world, has infinite possibilities, and one looks for that
common ground upon which to play his/her fictional game and knows that
there is no end to his/her discourse. Utopia is a characteristic present in
human nature, an essential factor which enables human beings to mediate
between reality and ideality, between that which is and that which is possi-
ble. The intention, therefore, "is to be not, indeed impossible, but most
distinctly impracticable."20 In this way, like a metaphor, utopia is an instru-
ment ofknowledge driven by the human desire to search for a better condi-
tion, and "it is [always] here [even] ifnot now." It is a weltbild, an ideaI
creation of the world, and "È ovvio che chi fa metafore, letteralmente
parlando mente--e tutti lo sanno.,,21 as much as Eco's Baudolino.
RAFFAELE DE BENEDICTIS
Wayne State University

1 Laura Lilli, "Si intitola Baudolino." La Repubblica Il Sept. 2000.

2 Benedetto Croce, La storia come pensiero e come azione, (Bari: Laterza, 1943) 5.
3 Alan B. Spitzer, Historical Truth and Lies about the Past, (Chapel Hill: The

University ofNorth Caroline Press, 1966) 61.

4 Spitzer, 3.
5 Umberto Eco, Baudolino, (Milano: Bompiani, 2000) 45.
6 Umberto Eco, "Postille a Il nome della rosa" in Il nome della rosa, (Milano:

Bompiani, 1980) 529. The emphasis on "ironia" is mine.

7 Martin Heidegger, The Question oj Being, tr. William Kluback and Jean T.

Wilde, (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1958) 80-83.

8 Robert Stam, Robert Burgoyne, Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, New Vocabulary in

Film Semiotics, (Routledge, 1992) 24.

9 On this aspect see a1so Umberto Eco, La struttura assente, vi ed. (Milano,

Bompiani, 1989).
lO Jaques Derrida, OfGrammatology, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1976) 49.

Il Umberto Eco, The Limits ojlnterpretation, (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1994) 36.

12 Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers, 4 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard UP,

1934-48) 8.332.

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410 RAFFAELE DE BENEDICTIS

13 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscobe

(New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1968) 28.

14 The emphasis on mentire is mine. Baudolino, 48.

15 The emphasis on the words in italics is mine. Baudolino, 525.

16 Umberto Eco, Lector infabula, (Milano: Bompiani, 1979) 125-26. See also

note #2 that deals with the concept of 'fictional possible world'.

17 La storia, 19.

18 Benedetto Croce, Teoria e storia della storiografia, (Bari: Laterza, 1943) 4.

Croce too shares the same view about history and says that: " 'ogni vera storia è storia
contemporanea' .... per me, in questo momento, quelle storie non sono storie, ma tutt'al
più, semplici titoli di libri storici, e sono state o saranno storie in coloro che le hanno
pensate o le penseranno, e in me, quando le ho pensate o quando le penserò, rielabo-
randole secondo il mio bisogno spirituale."
19 La storia, 108.

20 H. G. Wells, A Modern Utopia, (Lincoln NB: University ofNebraska Press,

1967) 6.
21 Umberto Eco, Semiotica e filosofia del linguaggio, (Torino: Einaudi, 1984)
144.

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