 "The Cloven Viscount" was collected together with "The Baron in the Trees" and "The Nonexistent Knight" in a single volume, "Our Ancestors", for which Calvino was awarded the Salento Prize in 1960.The Viscount Medardo of Terralba and his squire Kurt ride across the plague-ravaged plain of Bohemia en route to join the Christian army in the Turkish wars of the seventeenth century.On the first day of fighting, a Turkish swordsman unhorses the inexperienced Viscount.