 Fo's response to the 1992 quincentennial celebrations of the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to the Americas, the title character is a Venetian fugitive who escapes from the Spanish Inquisition by joining the explorer and coloniser's fourth voyage.Forced to tend the animals on board, a storm casts him adrift in the ocean on the back of a pig until he reaches the coast and is rescued by the indigenous peoples of the Americas.A video recording of Fo's performance exists.