It is April, 1204, and Constantinople, the splendid capital of the Byzantine Empire, is being sacked and burned by the knights of the fourth Crusade. His other works include Foucault's Pendulum , The Island of the Day Before, Baudolino , The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, The Prague Cemetery and Numero Zero along with many brilliant collections of essays. Baudolino has helped Niketas Choniates, the chancellor of the basileus of Byzantium, to flee the city. Some of Kipling's stories come perhaps closest, but he never had the depth of detailed knowledge that Eco has.

Niketas Choniates helps Baudolino discover the truth about how the Emperor Frederick died – with shattering results for Baudolino and his friends.Every detail is right, explanation abounds, but always as if the people of the era are explaining things to each other. Without in any way being dry or academic, Eco puts us right in the middle of the philosophical debates of the age, linking us at first hand to Barbarossa, Abelard and Eloise. You can't help but wonder if there is really such a thing as a small white lie in service of bigger historical truth. Discover the Middle Ages with Baudolino - a wondrous, dazzling, beguiling tale of history, myth and invention. You can't help but ponder numerous other questions that come to your mind naturally, not because the author tried to force them on you.

During the siege, Baudolino works on the side of Frederick Barbarossa, but concocts a plan to help win the Alessandrian townspeople independence. It is the year 1204, and Constantinople, the splendid capital of the Byzantine Empire, is being sacked and burned by the knights of the fourth Crusade. They meet imaginary beasts and monsters - giants and creatures with eyes in their breasts, one-footed hopping skiapods and beautiful hypatias, half-virgin, half-goat - creatures out of the fantastic voyages of Mandeville, turned solid in this tale. He is said to have been the son of a noble family, but to have given all his wealth to the poor before moving to a miserable hut near the river. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.Born a simple peasant in northern Italy, Baudolino has two major gifts - a talent for learning foreign languages and skill in telling lies. I'm glad I've reconsidered, because while Baudolino is full of historical minutae and almost menacingly erudite at times, it also brims with wit, passion, irony and imagination.