 With Italo, I thought literature had died. Italo Calvino, the author of such masterworks as The Baron in the Trees and Cosmicomics, was traveling across the United States on a Ford Foundation scholarship at the age of 36 when he arranged to meet Martin Luther King, Jr. Here are the facts. The two men met in Montgomery, Alabama, where King was planning a protest at the state capitol. Calvino stood watching as the protesters received their instructions from King.