The Name of the Rose

by Umberto Eco

ON AUGUST 16, 1968, I WAS HANDED A BOOK WRITTEN BY A CERTAIN Abbé Vallet, Le Manuscrit de Dom Adson de Melk, traduit en français d’après l’édition de Dom J. Mabillon (Aux Presses de l’Abbaye de la Source, Paris, 1842). Supplemented by historical information that was actually quite scant, the book claimed to reproduce faithfully a fourteenth-century manuscript that, in its turn, had been found in the monastery of Melk

I read with fascination the terrible story of Adso of Melk, and I allowed myself to be so absorbed by it that, almost in a single burst of energy, I completed a translation, using some of those large notebooks from the Papeterie Joseph Gibert in which it is so pleasant to write if you use a felt-tip pen.

As the reader must have guessed, in the monastery library I found no trace of Adso’s manuscript.

my traveling-companionship was abruptly interrupted, and the person with whom I was traveling disappeared—taking Abbé Vallet’s book, not out of spite, but because of the abrupt and untidy way in which our relationship ended.

Dom Arne Lahnestedt further convinced me that no Abbé Vallet had published books on the abbey’s presses (for that matter, nonexistent).

I came upon the Castilian version of a little work by Milo Temesvar, On the Use of Mirrors in the Game of Chess. It was an Italian translation of the original, which, now impossible to find, was in Georgian (Tbilisi, 1934); and here, to my great surprise, I read copious quotations from Adso’s manuscript, though the source was neither Vallet nor Mabillon; it was Father Athanasius Kircher (but which work?). A scholar—whom I prefer not to name—later assured me that (and he quoted indexes from memory) the great Jesuit never mentioned Adso of Melk.

As for the period in which the events described take place, we are at the end of November 1327; the date of the author’s writing, on the other hand, is uncertain. Inasmuch as he describes himself as a novice in 1327 and says he is close to death as he writes his memoirs, we can calculate roughly that the manuscript was written in the last or next-to-last decade of the fourteenth century.

For it is a tale of books, not of everyday worries, and reading it can lead us to recite, with à Kempis, the great imitator: “In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro.” January 5, 1980

ADSO’S MANUSCRIPT IS DIVIDED INTO SEVEN DAYS, AND EACH DAY into periods corresponding to the liturgical hours. The subtitles, in the third person, were probably added by Vallet.

Matins (which Adso sometimes refers to by the older expression “Vigiliae”) Between 2:30 and 3:00 in the morning. Lauds (which in the most ancient tradition were called “Matutini” or “Matins”) Between 5:00 and 6:00 in the morning, in order to end at dawn. Prime Around 7:30, shortly before daybreak. Terce Around 9:00. Sext Noon (in a monastery where the monks did not work in the fields, it was also the hour of the midday meal in winter). Nones Between 2:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon. Vespers Around 4:30, at sunset (the Rule prescribes eating supper before dark). Compline Around 6:00 (before 7:00, the monks go to bed). The calculation is based on the fact that in northern Italy at the end of November, the sun rises around 7:30 A.M. and sets around 4:40 P.M.

The young no longer want to study anything, learning is in decline, the whole world walks on its head, blind men lead others equally blind and cause them to plunge into the abyss, birds leave the nest before they can fly, the jackass plays the lyre, oxen dance.

Everything is diverted from its proper course. In those days, thank God, I acquired from my master the desire to learn and a sense of the straight way, which remains even when the path is tortuous.

And he answered that the beauty of the cosmos derives not only from unity in variety, but also from variety in unity.

In which the foot of the abbey is reached, and William demonstrates his great acumen.

Such is the power of the truth that, like good, it is its own propagator.

Mustn’t we say, then, that the book of nature speaks to us only of essences, as many distinguished theologians teach?” “Not entirely, dear Adso,” my master replied. “True, that kind of print expressed to me, if you like, the idea of ‘horse,’ the verbum mentis, and would have expressed the same to me wherever I might have found it. But the print in that place and at that hour of the day told me that at least one of all possible horses had passed that way. So I found myself halfway between the perception of the concept ‘horse’ and the knowledge of an individual horse.

I could say I was caught at that moment between the singularity of the traces and my ignorance, which assumed the quite diaphanous form of a universal idea. If you see something from a distance, and you do not understand what it is, you will be content with defining it as a body of some dimension. When you come closer, you will then define it as an animal, even if you do not yet know whether it is a horse or an ass. And finally, when it is still closer, you will be able to say it is a horse even if you do not yet know whether it is Brunellus or Niger. And only when you are at the proper distance will you see that it is Brunellus

So an hour ago I could expect all horses, but not because of the vastness of my intellect, but because of the paucity of my deduction. And my intellect’s hunger was sated only when I saw the single horse that the monks were leading by the halter. Only then did I truly know that my previous reasoning had brought me close to the truth.

I believe also that often the Evil One works through second causes. And I know that he can impel his victims to do evil in such a way that the blame falls on a righteous man, and the Evil One rejoices then as the righteous man is burned in the place of his succubus. Inquisitors often, to demonstrate their zeal, wrest a confession from the accused at all costs, thinking that the only good inquisitor is one who concludes the trial by finding a scapegoat. . . .” “An inquisitor, too, can be impelled by the Devil,” William said.

In this abbey something has happened that requires the attention and counsel of an acute and prudent man. Acute in uncovering, and prudent (if necessary) in covering. If a shepherd errs, he must be isolated from other shepherds, but woe unto us if the sheep begin to distrust shepherds.”

“For this reason,” the abbot continued, “I consider that any case involving the error of a shepherd can be entrusted only to men like you, who can distinguish not only good from evil, but also what is expedient from what is not.

“. . . that you pronounced sentence only when,” the abbot continued, not heeding the interruption, “the presence of the Devil was so evident to all eyes that it was impossible to act otherwise without the clemency’s being more scandalous than the crime itself.” “When I found someone guilty,” William explained, “he had really committed crimes of such gravity that in all conscience I could hand him over to the secular arm.”

“Why,” he asked, “do you insist on speaking of criminal acts without referring to their diabolical cause?” “Because reasoning about causes and effects is a very difficult thing, and I believe the only judge of that can be God.

Adelmo of Otranto, a monk still young though already famous as a master illuminator, had been found one morning by a goatherd at the bottom of the cliff below the Aedificium. Since he had been seen by other monks in choir during compline but had not reappeared at matins, he had probably fallen there during the darkest hours of the night. The night of a great snowstorm, in which flakes as sharp as blades fell, almost like hail, driven by a furious wind that blew from the west. Soaked by that snow, which had first melted and then frozen into shards of ice, the body had been discovered at the foot of the sheer drop, torn by the rocks it had struck on the way down. Poor, fragile, mortal thing, God have mercy on him. Thanks to the battering the body had suffered in its broken fall, determining from which precise spot it had fallen was not easy: certainly from one of the windows that opened in rows on the three stories on the three sides of the tower exposed to the abyss.

I, too, understood that the abbot knew something but had learned it under the seal of confession. He must have heard from someone’s lips a sinful detail that could have a bearing on the tragic end of Adelmo. Perhaps for this reason he was begging Brother William to uncover a secret he himself suspected, though he was unable to reveal to anyone—and he hoped that my master, with the powers of his intellect, would cast light on—what he, the abbot, had to shroud in shadows because of the sublime law of charity. “Very well,” William said then, “may I question the monks?” “You may.” “May I move freely about the abbey?” “I grant you that power.” “Will you assign me this mission coram monachis?” “This very evening.” “I shall begin, however, today, before the monks know what you have charged me to do. Besides, I already had a great desire—not the least reason for my sojourn here—to visit your library, which is spoken of with admiration in all the abbeys of Christendom.”

“You can move freely through the whole abbey, as I have said. But not, to be sure, on the top floor of the Aedificium, the library.” “Why not?” “I would have explained to you before, but I thought you knew. You see, our library is not like others. . . .”

And as long as these walls stand, we shall be the custodians of the divine Word.” “Amen,” William said in a devout tone. “But what does this have to do with the fact that the library may not be visited?” “You see, Brother William,” the abbot said, “to achieve the immense and holy task that enriches those walls”—and he nodded toward the bulk of the Aedificium, which could be glimpsed from the cell’s windows, towering above the abbatial church itself—“devout men have toiled for centuries, observing iron rules. The library was laid out on a plan which has remained obscure to all over the centuries, and which none of the monks is called upon to know. Only the librarian has received the secret, from the librarian who preceded him, and he communicates it, while still alive, to the assistant librarian, so that death will not take him by surprise and rob the community of that knowledge. And the secret seals the lips of both men. Only the librarian has, in addition to that knowledge, the right to move through the labyrinth of the books, he alone knows where to find them and where to replace them, he alone is responsible for their safekeeping. The other monks work in the scriptorium and may know the list of the volumes that the library houses. But a list of titles often tells very little; only the librarian knows, from the collocation of the volume, from its degree of inaccessibility, what secrets, what truths or falsehoods, the volume contains. Only he decides how, when, and whethe...

“So in the library there are also books containing falsehoods. . . .” “Monsters exist because they are part of the divine plan, and in the horrible features of those same monsters the power of the Creator is revealed. And by divine plan, too, there exist also books by wizards, the cabalas of the Jews, the fables of pagan poets, the lies of the infidels. It was the firm and holy conviction of those who founded the abbey and sustained it over the centuries that even in books of falsehood, to the eyes of the sage reader, a pale reflection of the divine wisdom can shine. And therefore the library is a vessel of these, too. But for this very reason, you understand, it cannot be visited by just anyone.

If for a hundred and a hundred years everyone had been able freely to handle our codices, the majority of them would no longer exist. So the librarian protects them not only against mankind but also against nature, and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion, the enemy of truth.” “And so no one, except for two people, enters the top floor of the Aedificium. . . .” The abbot smiled. “No one should. No one can. No one, even if he wished, would succeed. The library defends itself, immeasurable as the truth it houses, deceitful as the falsehood it preserves. A spiritual labyrinth, it is also a terrestrial labyrinth. You might enter and you might not emerge.

“But you have not dismissed the possibility that Adelmo fell from one of the windows of the library. And how can I study his death if I do not see the place where the story of his death may have begun?” “Brother William,” the abbot said, in a conciliatory tone, “a man who described my horse Brunellus without seeing him, and the death of Adelmo though knowing virtually nothing of it, will have no difficulty studying places to which he does not have access.” William bowed. “You are wise also when you are severe.

And how can I study his death if I do not see the place where the story of his death may have begun?” “Brother William,” the abbot said, in a conciliatory tone, “a man who described my horse Brunellus without seeing him, and the death of Adelmo though knowing virtually nothing of it, will have no difficulty studying places to which he does not have access.” William bowed. “You are wise also when you are severe. It shall be as you wish.” “If ever I were wise, it would be because I know how to be severe,” the abbot answered.

“Ubertino?” “He is here. He is expecting you. You will find him in church.” “When?” “Always,” the abbot said, and smiled. “You must know that, although very learned, he is not a man to appreciate the library. He considers it a secular lure. . . . For the most part he stays in church, meditating, praying. . . .” “Is he old?” William asked, hesitating. “How long has it been since you saw him?” “Many years.” “He is weary. Very detached from the things of this world...

The abbot took his leave. He was going out of the cell when from the courtyard a heartrending cry arose, like that of someone mortally wounded, followed by other, equally horrible cries. “What is that?” William asked, disconcerted. “Nothing,” the abbot answered, smiling. “At this time of year they slaughter the pigs. A job for the swineherds. This is not the blood that should concern you.” He went out, and he did a disservice to his reputation as a clever man. Because the next morning . . . But curb your impatience, garrulous tongue of mine. For on the day of which I am telling, and before its night, many more things happened that it would be best to narrate.

Adso admires the door of the church, and William meets Ubertino of Casale again.

I saw a throne set in the sky and One seated on the throne. The face of the Seated One was stern and impassive, the eyes wide and glaring over a terrestrial humankind that had reached the end of its story; majestic hair and beard flowed over the chest like the waters of a river, in streams all equal, symmetrically divided in two. The crown on his head was rich in enamels and jewels, the purple imperial tunic was arranged in broad folds over the knees, woven with embroideries and laces of gold and silver thread. The left hand, resting on one knee, held a sealed book, the right was uplifted in an attitude of blessing or—I could not tell—of admonition.

I seemed to hear (or did I really hear?) that voice and I saw those visions that had accompanied my youth as a novice, my first reading of the sacred books, and my nights of meditation in the choir of Melk, and in the delirium of my weak and weakened senses I heard a voice mighty as a trumpet that said, “Write in a book what you now see”

And the Seated One took in His hands a sharp sickle and cried: “Thrust in thy sickle and reap, for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe”; and He that sat on the cloud thrust His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.

It was at this point that I realized the vision was speaking precisely of what was happening in the abbey, of what we had learned from the abbot’s reticent lips—and how many times in the following days did I return to contemplate the doorway, convinced I was experiencing the very events that it narrated. And I knew we had made our way up there in order to witness a great and celestial massacre.

The creature behind us was apparently a monk, though his torn and dirty habit made him look like a vagabond. Unlike many of my brothers, I have never in my whole life been visited by the Devil; but I believe that if he were to appear to me one day, he would have the very features of our interlocutor. His head was hairless, not shaved in penance but as the result of the past action of some viscid eczema; the brow was so low that if he had had hair on his head it would have mingled with his eyebrows

The nose could not be called a nose, for it was only a bone that began between the eyes, but as it jutted from his forehead it immediately sank back, transforming itself only into two dark holes, broad nostrils thick with hair. The mouth, joined to the nose by a scar, was wide and ill-made, stretching more to the right than to the left, and between the upper lip, nonexistent, and the lower, prominent and fleshy, there protruded, in an irregular pattern, black teeth sharp as a dog’s. The man smiled (or at least so I believed) and, holding up one finger as if in admonition, he said: “Penitenziagite! Watch out for the draco who cometh in futurum to gnaw your anima!

They gathered in independent communities, hated equally by the feudal lords, the empire, and the city magistrates. Finally Saint Francis had appeared, spreading a love of poverty that did not contradict the precepts of the church; and after his efforts the church had accepted the summons to severe behavior of those older movements and had purified them of the elements of disruption that lurked in them.

as the Franciscan order grew and attracted the finest men, it became too powerful, too bound to earthly matters, and many Franciscans wanted to restore it to its early purity. A very difficult matter for an order that at the time when I was at the abbey already numbered more than thirty thousand members scattered throughout the whole world. But so it was, and many of those monks of Saint Francis were opposed to the Rule that the order had established, and they said the order had by now assumed the character of those ecclesiastical institutions it had come into the world to reform.

For what I was to see at the abbey would make me think that it is often inquisitors who create heretics. And not only in the sense that they imagine heretics where these do not exist, but also that inquisitors repress the heretical putrefaction so vehemently that many are driven to share in it, in their hatred for the judges.

Spirituals were all fulfilled, and Celestine founded with them the community known as that of the fratres et pauperes heremitae domini Celestini. On the other hand, while the Pope was to act as mediator among the most powerful cardinals of Rome, there were some, like a Colonna and an Orsini, who secretly supported the new poverty movement, a truly curious choice for powerful men who lived in vast wealth and luxury; and I have never understood whether they simply exploited the Spirituals for their own political ends or whether in some way they felt they justified their carnal life by supporting the Spiritual trend.

Ubertino had been taken on as chaplain by Cardinal Orsini when, having become the most respected among the Spirituals, he risked being accused as a heretic. And the cardinal himself had protected Ubertino in Avignon.

At this point it was difficult to distinguish the spiritual masters, who maintained contact with the ecclesiastical authorities, from their simpler followers, who now lived outside the order, begging for alms and existing from day to day by the labor of their hands, holding no property of any kind.

Celestine V was succeeded by Boniface VIII, and this Pope promptly demonstrated scant indulgence for Spirituals and Fraticelli in general: in the last years of the dying century he signed a bull, Firma cautela, in which with one stroke he condemned bizochi, vagabond mendicants who roamed about at the far edge of the Franciscan order, and the Spirituals themselves, who had left the life of the order and retired to a hermitage.

the advent of John XXII robbed them of all hope. When he was elected in 1316, he had Angelus Clarenus and the Spirituals of Provence put in chains, and many of those who insisted on conducting a free life were burned at the stake. John had realized, however, that to destroy the weed of the Fraticelli, he needed to condemn as heretical the idea that Christ and the apostles had not owned any property, either individually or in common; and since the general chapter of the Franciscans in Perugia had held this opinion only a year earlier, in condemning the Fraticelli the Pope condemned the whole order.

So after that, many Fraticelli, who knew nothing of empire or of Perugia, were burned at the stake. These thoughts were in my mind as I gazed on the legendary figure of Ubertino.

Only in recent times (and the rumors I had heard were vague) his star at court had waned, he had had to leave Avignon, and the Pope had him pursued as a heretic who per mundum discurrit vagabundus. Then, it was said, all trace of him was lost.