The Baron in the Trees: Chapter 16 Summary & Analysis

Biagio tells the reader that at first, Cosimo told a very different story. He first insists that pirates kidnapped and killed the cavalier avvocato and then, when Baron Arminio becomes depressed, Cosimo constructs a glorious story in which the cavalier avvocato struggled to defeat the pirates and died. He conceals the part about the cave until a few weeks after the event, at which point the charcoal burners have eaten everything. After the cavalier avvocato’s death, Baron Arminio seems to age. He attempts to care for the bees and finish a canal project, but these attempts end when bees scare him and he falls into a canal. He recovers, but falls into a deep depression.

Baron Arminio seems disinterested in life. Nothing in his life has gone according to plan: he’s still not a duke, Cosimo is still in the trees, and the cavalier avvocato is dead. Baron Arminio begins to rave against the Jesuits and dies. Cosimo follows the funeral procession, but the cypress trees around the cemetery are so thick that he can’t enter. Instead of throwing dirt on the coffin, Cosimo throws a branch. This makes Biagio think that the entire family was just as distant from Baron Arminio as Cosimo was.

Even though Cosimo is now the Baron di Rondò, his life changes little. He appears more often in the city and tells stories from his tree. He often recounts the story of the cavalier avvocato’s end, but in order to appease his listeners, he adds in the part about Zaira to make them feel sorry for the old man. Biagio suggests that this was the most truthful version, but Cosimo gradually distorted the story over time. Everyone is interested in Cosimo’s stories, and Biagio asks the reader’s forgiveness—if the stories seem far-fetched, it’s because he’s sharing Cosimo’s version of events. For instance, when someone asked if it’s true that Cosimo hasn’t left the trees, Cosimo tells a story of jumping onto a buck’s antlers and staying there through a fight with another buck. Biagio says that Cosimo’s stories went from true to invented and back again.

Underlying Cosimo’s storytelling is the fact that he hasn’t been in love and feels his life has no point because of this. He looks at girls, but none are quite right. He starts dreaming of love but is embarrassed when he sees lovers enter the woods. Instead, he watches animals mate. Ottimo Massimo often courts dogs much larger than he is, and though Cosimo sees that, like Ottimo Massimo, he’s different, he’s not sure how to find love in the trees. He grows increasingly dissatisfied until he learns that in Olivabassa, there’s a group of Spaniards that also live in the trees. He travels to Olivabassa.