![]() Umberto Eco, the bibliophile’s bibliophile, takes the occasion of his novel The Name of the Rose to imagine a place of his fondest dreams, a library hidden away in secret passages, full of odd and occult knowledge. Into this blood-soaked scene comes William of Baskerville, a Franciscan brother, and a Benedictine novice named Adso of Melk, the narrator of a tale of scholarly investigation that in time links the murders to-well, to books, for the abbey, says William, “has more books than any other Christian library.” That’s not necessarily a good thing, William tells Adso, for too much reading can lead a person to think strange thoughts. Suicide, poison, homicide: There are dark mutterings that the devil stalks the land, and maybe even a witch or two. Some of the brethren are going missing, then turning up dead, one sopping in a cask of pig’s blood, another crushed beneath a rockfall, a third drowned in his bath. ![]() Stranger things still are afoot in a well-built if gloomy monastery in the mountains of northern Italy. There’s nothing like a little political intrigue to set a schism rolling. ![]() The pope also condemns the foundational tenets of the poor and peaceful Franciscan order, leading the Bavarian king to think that he might do worse than ally himself with the guys in the rough cloth robes. A Bavarian has assumed kingship over an aggregation of city-states scattered across northern Italy, earning the ire of the pope, who excommunicates him. ![]() Strange things are afoot in the year 1327. ![]()
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