Various strange characters from the Nuremberg Chronicle Nuremberg Chronicle right|thumbnail|240px|Fifth dayThe Nuremberg Chronicle is an illustrated Biblical paraphrase and world history that follows the story of human history related in the Bible; it includes the histories of a number of important Western cities. Written in Latin by Hartmann Schedel, with a version in... s figuring in the novel.

Pndapetzim is a fictitious city depicted in Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...

's Baudolino

Baudolino

Baudolino is a 2000 novel by Umberto Eco about the adventures of a young man named Baudolino in the known and mythical Christian world of the 12th century.Baudolino was translated into English in 2001 by William Weaver...

. Pndapetzim is a city somewhere in Asia, hundreds of days to the east of Armenia

Armenia

Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

. Pndapetzim is the entrance to the Kingdom of Prester John

Prester John

The legends of Prester John were popular in Europe from the 12th through the 17th centuries, and told of a Christian patriarch and king said to rule over a Christian nation lost amidst the Muslims and pagans in the Orient. Written accounts of this kingdom are variegated collections of medieval...

. 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

Deacon

Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...

 John, Prester John's governor of the city.

Pndapetzim is notable for its distinctive population. Virtually all the inhabitants of Pndapetzim are fantastical

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 humanoid

Humanoid

A humanoid is something that has an appearance resembling a human being. The term first appeared in 1912 to refer to fossils which were morphologically similar to, but not identical with, those of the human skeleton. Although this usage was common in the sciences for much of the 20th century, it...

 monsters from the medieval bestiary

Bestiary

A bestiary, or Bestiarum vocabulum is a compendium of beasts. Bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals, birds and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson...

, including skiapods

Monopod (creature)

Monopods are mythological dwarf-like creatures with a single, large foot extending from one thick leg centered in the middle of their body...

, giants

Giant (mythology)

The mythology and legends of many different cultures include monsters of human appearance but prodigious size and strength. "Giant" is the English word commonly used for such beings, derived from one of the most famed examples: the gigantes of Greek mythology.In various Indo-European mythologies,...

, satyrs, blemmyes

Blemmyes (legendary creatures)

The Blemmyes was a tribe which became fictionalized as a race of creatures believed to be acephalous monsters who had eyes and mouths on their chest. Pliny the Elder writes of them that Blemmyes traduntur capita abesse, ore et oculis pectore adfixis...

, hypatias (half goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

, half maiden beings descended from Hypatia of Alexandria

Hypatia of Alexandria

Hypatia was an Egyptian Neoplatonist philosopher who was the first notable woman in mathematics. As head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, she also taught philosophy and astronomy...

) and pygmies

Pygmy (mythology)

The Pygmies were a tribe of diminutive humans in Greek mythology. Their name in Greek was Pygmaioi, from pygmê, the length of the forearm...

. The only humans of Pndapetzim are the Nubian

Nubians

The Nubians are an ethnic group originally from northern Sudan, and southern Egypt now inhabiting North Africa and some parts of East Africa....

 guards of the Deacon and their eunuch

Eunuch

A eunuch is a person born male most commonly castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences...

 servants. Each race has its own religious beliefs, its own form of heresy

Heresy

Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

 (usually based by Eco on the models of other famous heresies). In spite of the heterogeneous 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

Metallurgy

Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...

, 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

Leprosy

Leprosy or Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Named after physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions...

, a fact which is kept as a state secret

State Secret

State Secret is a 1950 British drama film directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Jack Hawkins, Glynis Johns and Herbert Lom. It was released in the United States under the title The Great Manhunt.-Cast:...

, 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 is incapable of defending itself, and all its monstrous population is massacred. The result of the invasion is that all communication with the legendary Kingdom of Prester John is lost forever.