Clippings

Convalescent, immobilized in the nut tree, he plunged into serious study. At that time he began to write a Project for the Constitution of an Ideal State in the Trees, in which he described the imaginary Republic of Arborea, inhabited by just men. He began it as a treatise on laws and governments; but as he wrote, his impulse to invent complicated stories intervened and out poured a rough sketch of adventures, duels and erotic tales, the latter inserted in a chapter on matrimonial rights…. He sent a précis to Diderot, signing it simply: “Cosimo Rondò, Reader of the Encyclopaedia.” Diderot thanked him with a short note.