Pndapetzim

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Various strange characters from the Nuremberg Chronicles figuring in the novel.

Pndapetzim is a fictitious city depicted in Umberto Eco's Baudolino. Pndapetzim is a city somewhere in Asia, hundreds of days to the east of Armenia. Pndapetzim is the entrance to the Kingdom of Prester John. It is located in a relatively fertile land, cultivated with olive trees and fruit trees, and is bound by a mountainous landscape that means Pndapetzim is the only way to enter Prester John's kingdom. Pndapetzim is ruled by Deacon John, Prester John's governor of the city.

Pndapetzim is notable for its distinctive population. Virtually all the inhabitants of Pndapetzim are fantastical humanoid monsters from the medieval bestiary, including skiapods, giants, satyrs, blemmyes, hypatias (half goat, half maiden beings descended from Hypatia of Alexandria) and pygmies. The only humans of Pndapetzim are the Nubian guards of the Deacon and their eunuch servants. Each race has its own religious beliefs, its own form of heresy (usually based by Eco on the models of other famous heresies). In spite of the heterogenous population, Pndapetzim is peaceful; their inhabitants respect the Nubian guards and the authority of the Deacon. The architecture of Pndapetzim is primitive, full of conical and triangular mud houses. Their churches are dug into the rock by the giants. They do not know metallurgy, and construct everything in either wood or stone. Nothing is known of horses, boats or precious stones.

Although nominally the authority of the Deacon is absolute, in fact he is not more than a puppet of the eunuchs. When the main character Baudolino arrives, the Deacon has leprosy, a fact which is kept as a state secret, with the Deacon shut inside the tower. Pndapetzim is constantly under a threat from the White Huns that had never materialized in a real attack. When the White Huns really do attack the city, it was incapable of defending itself, and all its monstrous population is massacred. This invasion meant that all communication with the legendary Kingdom of Prester John was lost forever.