Butterflies are often used as symbols in both art and
literature. Metaphors for freedom, life and sometimes even death
as they imply a sense of transitoriness, butterflies also add a
sort of fantastical presence in a realist narrative this is why
they often appear in different stories. Iridescent insects of
shimmering colours, butterflies are for example a dominant
presence in Italo Calvino's books and in his universe, making
important appearances in his tales. In The Path to the Spiders'
Nests, Pin meets mountain butterflies of strange colours
meandering over the meadows. These butterflies are used in the
story to create contrasts with the tattooed butterfly on
Mancino's body. Butterflies reappear in The Cloven Viscount
where they take the feature of a Gorgon and return in If on a
Winter's Night a Traveller as symbols of the lightness of the
act of reading as opposed to the weight of the act of writing.
In a nutshell, we could say that Calvino used butterflies as
elements to create variations on symbolic and