The essay analyzes Invisible Cities as a “rebuilding” of Marco Polo’s Milione. Starting from the paratexts it reconstructs Calvino’s relationship with Polo’s text, focusing on the illustrated 1954 Einaudi Milione. While inheriting themes and stylistic elements from the medieval work, Calvino transforms the Milione into a modern narrative endowed with a rigorous combinatory architecture and influenced by Oulipian and structuralist thought. The essay highlights the centrality of “visibility” and the paradox of cities that are “invisible” yet vividly imaginable, reading the dialogues between Marco and Kublai Khan as a meditation on the limits of language. Invisible Cities marks Calvino’s first move toward postmodern themes such as the end of utopia, epistemological and political crisis.
University of Siena, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-4493-0520
Chapter Title
Il Marcopolo di Italo Calvino: Le città invisibili come rifacimento
Authors
Riccardo Castellana
Language
Italian
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0883-3.17
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2025
Copyright Information
© 2025 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Il Milione nel tempo tra Asia ed Europa: Marco Polo nelle letterature medievali e contemporanee
Book Subtitle
Atti del Convegno Internazionale (Siena, 7–8 novembre 2024) e del Seminario “700 anni di Marco Polo” (Firenze, 11 dicembre 2024)
Editors
Paola Mocella
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
178
Publication Year
2025
Copyright Information
© 2025 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0883-3
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0882-6
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0883-3
eISBN (epub)
979-12-215-0884-0
Series Title
ConTesti medievali. Studi, ricerche e fonti