Set in eighteenth-century Italy, this novel follows Cosimo, a young nobleman who, after a quarrel with his family over a dinner of snails, climbs into the trees of his father's estate and vows never to come down. He lives out his life among the branches, hunting, reading, loving, and taking part in the wider events of his age. Told by his admiring younger brother, it is a gentle, funny fable about independence, duty and the Enlightenment, and about how one can stay close to humanity by keeping a chosen distance.