Baudolino

In 1204, during the sack of Constantinople, a storyteller named Baudolino rescues a Byzantine official and begins to tell him his life story. Born a peasant in northern Italy, he was adopted by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and became a gifted liar, scholar and companion at court.

His tale grows into a comic medieval adventure of forged relics, the legend of the priest-king Prester John, and a journey to the edge of the known world, filled with strange creatures. The novel plays with truth, invention and the stories people prefer to believe.