The Cloven Viscount

The Cloven Viscount was collected together with The Baron in the Trees and The Nonexistent Knight in a single volume, Our Ancestors, for which Calvino was awarded the Salento Prize in 1960.

[1] The Viscount Medardo of Terralba and his squire Kurt ride across the plague-ravaged plain of Bohemia en route to join the Christian army in the Turkish wars of the seventeenth century.

Fearless, he scrambles over the battlefield with sword bared, and is split in two by a cannonball hitting him square in the chest.

As a result of the injury, Viscount Medardo becomes two people: Gramo (the Bad) and Buono (the Good).

The army field doctors save Gramo through a stitching miracle; the Viscount is "alive and cloven".