The Nonexistent Knight: short summary of the chapters of the third chapter of the trilogy Our Ancestors by Calvino. Suitable for a diagram or a book card.The Nonexistent Knight is the famous novel by Italo Calvino (1923-1985) and represents the third chapter of the so-called heraldic trilogy which also includes The Cloven Viscount from 1952 and The Baron in the Trees from 1957.
Published in 1959, the novel The Nonexistent Knight is part of the trilogy Our Ancestors. Set during the Crusades, the novel tells the story of Agilulfo Emo Bertrandino dei Guildiverni e degli Altri di Corbara, a knight without a body who exists only thanks to the strength of his will and the rigorous respect of the code of chivalry. Through the adventures of Agilulfo, Calvino explores themes such as identity, existence and the value of honor, masterfully intertwining realism and fantasy, philosophy and humor.
The Nonexistent Knight: Chapter by Chapter Summary
Below is a chapter-by-chapter summary of The Nonexistent Knight .
Chapter 1
On an early summer afternoon, beneath the red walls of Paris, Charlemagne reviews his troops. All the knights present themselves; finally, the last to arrive is Agilulf, a knight in white armor who claims not to exist, and to serve solely through willpower and faith in the “holy cause”; the knight initially refuses to show his face to Charlemagne , until, at his insistence, he lifts his helmet and the armor turns out to be truly empty.
Chapter 2
Agilulfo is a knight who does all his tasks perfectly and for this reason is unpleasant to everyone. One night, unable to sleep, he walks meditating. He meets a knight named Rambaldo, naive and inexperienced, who tells him that he wants to avenge his father, the Marquis Gherardo di Rossiglione, killed by the Argalif Isoarre.
The next day, Rambaldo discovers that Agilulfo does not actually exist but, according to two commanders he finds himself talking to, is instead a useless pile of scrap metal. Rambaldo, however, hopes to meet him again because, according to him, he is the only figure who gives concreteness, being the most solid presence, to the rest of the army.
Chapter 3
Later, the Frankish army of Charlemagne, after several hours of galloping, camps in a clearing where strange noises are heard. It is here that the encounter with Gurdulù takes place , “one who is there but does not know he is there” and who sometimes believes he is an animal or an object. Impressed by this man, the emperor Charlemagne makes him become a squire of Agilulf but Gurdulù runs through the bushes disappearing from the sight of the latter who moves as if to track him down but does not see him anymore. His companions ask him, to tease him, when the new squire will begin to serve and Agilulf seriously replies that every order of the emperor must be carried out immediately.
Chapter 4
The narrator of the novel is Sister Teodora . All the Christian knights are ready to fight against the Infidels, even Rambaldo is waiting for the signal to attack with the sole purpose of killing the Argalif Isoarre .
It is understood that the battle has started because of the coughing of the knights caused by the dust raised by the other horses at full gallop. Rambaldo asks the interpreter to translate what a Saracen is saying, that is, to let him pass. But Rambaldo would only let him pass in exchange for information on where the Argalif Isoarre is because he must avenge his father’s death.
As instructed, he goes to the hill on the left, but when he climbs it he finds the Argalif Abdul ; then he goes to the one on the right where he finds a squire in front of him with the task of always carrying a pair of glasses because the Argalif Isoarre is short-sighted. At the moment in which the squire should have handed them to him, Rambaldo, with the lance, breaks them while Isoarre dies pierced by the hand of a Christian knight. Once he has avenged his father’s death even if not directly, Rambaldo takes refuge in a clearing where he is attacked by two Moors. As he is about to succumb to the blows of his adversaries, he is helped by a periwinkle knight who saves him and flees without saying a word.
Rambaldo tries to follow him but loses sight of him and only later finds him naked and immersed in the water of a stream. Only now does he discover, to his great surprise, that it is a woman named Bradamante with whom he has already fallen madly in love. Returning to the camp, he tells everything that has happened to his companions who cannot help but mock him. At this point the only hope is to be able to meet the non-existent knight in whom he can confide.
Chapter 5
Sister Teodora describes the camp during the meal hour. Rambaldo wants to become a paladin like Agilulfo, to save the weakest Christians and cover himself with glory. Agilulfo disproves this illusion by making him understand the responsibilities of being a paladin. Therefore he makes him go to the kitchens of the regiments to verify if everything is in order with the task of reporting it to him. When he returns he is not clear because the poor who come to eat soup have different names but they all look alike; Agilulfo then decides to go and verify for himself.
To his great surprise, he finds that the poor man is Gurdulù; so he reminds him that by order of Charlemagne he is his squire and that therefore he must, among other tasks, also bury the dead of the battle and cut wood. In the middle of the work, Rambaldo finds the courage to ask Agilulfo if he knows Bradamante ; the paladin does not answer him but has a fit of rage in showing him how to cut, with a clean and straight stroke, a log. This gesture frightens him, not understanding what has gone through Agilulfo’s head.
Chapter 6
The next day, Rambaldo meets Bradamante and when he sees her face for the first time he finds her beautiful. Going to meet her he challenges her to archery.
By chance Agilulfo passes by those parts and Bradamante, struck by his charm, falls madly in love with him and invites him, in turn, to shoot with the bow . Rambaldo, resigned to the love that Bradamante feels for Agilulfo, follows the other knights. Thus he meets Torrismondo, a young warrior convinced that the war, conducted against the Infidels, is perfectly useless because everyone would have disappeared except the knights of the Holy Grail .
Chapter 7
Agilulf goes to the imperial banquet where Charlemagne is also present. The paladins, who arrive one by one, pounce on the food making more confusion than in battle while, where Agilulf is sitting, everything proceeds calmly, cleanly and in order. The knights begin to tell of their battles boasting about them and Agilulf, citing documents, affirms or denies their anecdotes resulting, once again, the usual unpleasant one.
At this point Torrismondo stands up saying that even Agilulf is not without blemish because when he saved Sofronia , daughter of the king of Scotland, from the brigands, the latter was no longer a virgin because at thirteen she was already pregnant with him and, to avoid the wrath of her parents, she fled wandering through the highlands. This means that Agilulf is not a knight because only he who saves a virgin woman can become one.
Thus, also by the will of Charlemagne, he sets out in search of Sofronia, with Gurdulù, his squire, in tow. Torrismondo, claiming to be an illegitimate son, cannot hold the rank of knight. Charlemagne, hearing that, for Torrismondo, the father is the Sacred Order of the Knights of the Holy Grail, says that only if the Order as a whole recognizes him as a son, then he can retain his military rights. So Torrismondo also sets out full of hope. Seeing Agilulfo ready to leave, Bradamante is moved, unlike all the other knights who pretend not to be waiting for him to leave, and, full of love for him, follows him. Rambaldo, seeing Bradamante leave, also follows her for the same reasons.
Chapter 8
Agilulf and Gurdulù set out on their journey. The knight stops to ask the way to a miller’s wife who offers him bread and water, which are refused, and fodder for the horse, which is accepted. Once he sets out again, he finds himself having to cross a walled city, whose guards want him to show his face because they are looking for a ferocious bandit who is raging in the area. Refusing, he runs away and shortly afterward hands the bandit over to them.
Meanwhile, Bradamante arrives at the places where Agilulfo has passed and asks if anyone has seen him. In turn Rambaldo asks if anyone has seen both of them. Meanwhile Agilulfo meets a woman who begs him to free her lady’s castle from the siege of a ferocious pack of bears. This is how Agilulfo meets Priscilla , a widow who is not very tall and not very plump who falls in love with him and with whom he spends a beautiful night in which he praises and caresses her.
Chapter 9
Agilulf leaves again and arrives in England, at the monastery where Sofronia has been retreating for fifteen years. An old man tells him that the convent was razed to the ground by a fleet of Moorish pirates who deported the nuns to Morocco to be sold as slaves. Agilulf sets sail for Morocco but:
- the ship collides with a whale and capsizes;
- the knight sinks to the bottom of the sea and walks across it to Morocco.
- Gurdulù, the faithful squire, gets caught in a net of Saracen fishermen who take him with them to make him an oyster fisherman.
Agilulf finally arrives in Morocco and reunites with Gurdulù who, with the fishermen, must search for pearls for the sultan, thus discovering that Sofronia has been destined to marry the Moroccan sovereign. The knight in white armor offers himself as an alternative gift for the future bride; so when he arrives inside the room where Sofronia is, he takes her and flees with her, on a felucca headed for the Christian lands. At this point the felucca crashes against the cliff of Brittany and Agilulf thinks of leaving Sofronia inside a cave, reaching Charlemagne’s camp on foot to proclaim the woman’s virginity. Torrismondo arrives where Sofronia has taken refuge.
Chapter 10
Torrismondo is looking for the secret camp of the Knights of the Holy Grail ; he arrives in Curvaldia where he asks the inhabitants of a village for some ricotta and bread but they refuse him because of the offerings they must make to the Knights of the Holy Grail present in the forest. Torrismondo reaches them and, once he explains the story of his life, unfortunately they cannot recognize him as their son but they ask him to stay and be a member of the Order.
For a few days he stays with the knights concentrating on reaching ecstasy and complete communion with everything; the day the Knights go to the various villages to collect taxes, they uselessly attack the peasants who have nothing to offer them and so Torrismondo sides with the people, causing the Order to retreat and running away, not knowing, at this point, who he was. He reaches a cave and going inside to find shelter, he sees Sofronia sleeping. There is an exchange of words between the two and it is understood that Torrismondo is in love with the woman .
Chapter 11
Charlemagne, together with Agilulf, Gurdulù and an old woman who is an expert in women’s affairs, are headed to Brittany to the cave where the knight in white armor left Sofronia. Entering, they see the woman and Torrismondo lying in an embrace. Agilulf calls Sofronia by name and Torrismondo, who, hearing her name, thinks he has committed incest, so he runs away; Agilulf also runs away with him. Torrismondo, however, returns thinking that until a moment before the woman was a virgin and that, therefore, she cannot be his mother.
In fact, we learn that Sofronia raised her stepmother’s son, born from a chance meeting. When she learned that the king was returning, she sent the children into the woods for a walk and they never returned. Rambaldo goes to look for Agilulfo; finding only his armor under an oak tree and a scroll in which he says that he is leaving the armor to him, so he decides to wear it : when he reaches the emperor, he states that all that remains of Agilulfo is the armor and that he can’t wait to go into battle. Rambaldo, after the war, is joined by a knight, Bradamante, who believes him to be Agilulfo because he is wearing his armor. Once joined, they look into each other’s eyes and seeing that it is Rambaldo, the woman runs away after stunning him with a blow of her sword.
Gurdulù becomes Torrismondo’s squire and Rambaldo, in search of the only one to whom he would like to confess his sorrows, does not stop looking for Agilulfo in every bivouac. The wedding is celebrated, in the presence of Charlemagne, between Torrismondo, who is elected count of Curvaldia and Sofronia. When they reach the village they see it flourished and the inhabitants accept the arrival of Torrismondo and his entourage but only as their equals.
