The Cloven Viscount

Italo Calvino wrote The Cloven Viscount (1952) during Italy’s post-World War II literary renaissance, when writers reconnected with their fantastical traditions. The novella, part of Calvino’s Our Ancestors trilogy, exemplifies Italy’s history of using supernatural elements to explore philosophical themes, a tradition stretching from Dante’s The Divine Comedy to the magical realism pioneered by Massimo Bontempelli in the 1920s.

Calvino’s approach evokes the Italian “fabulist” tradition, using fairy-tale structures to address adult concerns. The novella’s premise—in which a man is physically split into good and evil halves—creates a literal allegory for human duality. When Medardo is bisected lengthwise by a cannonball, Calvino establishes both a narrative event and a metaphorical framework for exploring moral complexities.

The text employs fairy-tale elements: a feudal castle, mysterious woods, and moral tests. However, Calvino subverts traditional fables by showing how both extremes become problematic. Neither the cruel “Bad ’Un” nor the excessively virtuous “Good ’Un” functions effectively, reflecting Calvino’s preoccupation with the dangers of absolutist thinking.

This approach connects to contemporaneous Italian writers like Dino Buzzati, whose novel The Tartar Steppe (1940) similarly uses fantastical elements to explore existential themes.