[1] Archimboldi is the pen name of German author Hans Reiter (born in 1920 and still alive in 2001, a 'great attractor' (one among many) the dense plotting of 2666 is drawn toward.
After learning that Archimboldi has recently been sighted in Mexico, three literary critics, Jean-Claude Pelletier, Manuel Espinoza, and Liz Norton, travel to Santa Teresa (a fictional counterpart to real-life Ciudad Juárez) in pursuit of his trail.
There he befriended Hugo Halder, the baron's nephew, who introduced him to the wider world of literature through the works of Wolfram von Eschenbach.
He was eventually captured and placed in an Allied POW camp, where he murdered a German official named Sammer, who was responsible for the shooting deaths of multiple Jews.
To avoid being connected with Sammer's murder he adopted the pseudonym "Benno von Archimboldi", modeled after Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo.