The Name of the Rose

Plot summary

In 1327 Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk, a Benedictine novice travelling under his protection, arrive at a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological disputation. This abbey is being used as neutral ground in a dispute between Pope John XXII and the Franciscans, over the question of apostolic poverty.

The monastery is disturbed by the death of Adelmo of Otranto, an illuminator revered for his illustrations. Adelmo was skilled at comical artwork, especially concerning religious matters. William is asked by the monastery's abbot, Abo of Fossanova, to investigate the death: During his enquiry he has a debate with one of the oldest monks in the abbey, Jorge of Burgos, about the theological meaning of laughter, which Jorge despises.

The next day a scholar of Aristotle and translator of Greek and Arabic, Venantius of Salvemec, is found dead in a vat of pig's blood. Severinus of Sankt Wendel, the herbalist, tells William that Venantius's body had black stains on the tongue and fingers, which suggests poison. Benno of Uppsala, a rhetoric scholar, reveals to William that the librarian, Malachi of Hildesheim, and his assistant Berengar of Arundel, had a homosexual relationship, until Berengar seduced Adelmo, who committed suicide out of guilt. The only other monks who knew about the indiscretions were Jorge and Venantius. In spite of Malachi's ban, William and Adso enter the labyrinthine library, discovering that there must be a hidden room, entitled the finis Africae after the presumed geographical edge of the world. They find a book on Venantius' desk along with some cryptic notes. Someone snatches the book, and they pursue to no avail.

By the day after, Berengar has gone missing, which puts pressure on William. William learns of how Remigio of Voragine, the abbey's cellarers, and the deformed monk Salvatore had a history with the Dulcinian heretics. Adso returns to the library alone in the evening. When leaving the library through the kitchen, Adso is seduced by a peasant girl, with whom he has his first sexual experience. After confessing to William, Adso is absolved, although he still feels guilty.

On the fourth day Berengar is found drowned in a bath, with his fingers and tongue bearing stains similar to those found on Venantius. Bernard Gui, a member of the Inquisition, arrives and arrests the peasant girl and Salvatore, accusing them both of heresy and witchcraft after finding them with Salvatore's amateurish love-spell (eggs, a black cat, and a chicken).

During the theological disputation the next day, Severinus, after obtaining a "strange" book, is found dead in his laboratory (struck on the head by a heavy armillary sphere), prompting William and Adso to search for the book. They find it, but do not recognize it; instead it is taken by Benno, who then agrees to Malachi's request that he become Assistant Librarian. Remigio and Malachi are found at the crime scene. Remigio is interrogated in a court setting by Bernard Gui, who forces him to reveal a heretical past, and then, under threat of torture, to falsely confess to the murders. Remigio, Salvatore, and the peasant girl are taken away and assumed to be doomed. In response to the recent tragedies in the abbey, Jorge leads a sermon about the coming of the Antichrist.

Malachi, near death, returns to the early sermon on the sixth day, and his final words concern scorpions. Nicholas of Morimundo, the glazier, tells William that whoever is the librarian would then become the Abbot, and with new light, William goes to the library to search for evidence. The Abbot is distraught that William has not solved the crime, and that the Inquisition is undermining him, so he dismisses William. That night, William and Adso penetrate the library once more and enter the finis Africae by solving its etymological riddle.

William and Adso discover Jorge waiting for them in the forbidden room. He confesses that he has been masterminding the Abbey for decades, and his last victim is the Abbot himself, who has been trapped to suffocate inside a second passage to the chamber. William asks Jorge for the second book of Aristotle's Poetics, which Jorge gladly offers. While flipping through the pages, which speak of the virtues of laughter, William deduces that Jorge – unable to destroy this last copy of the book – laced the pages with an unidentified plant-based poison, assuming correctly that a reader would have to lick his fingers to turn them. Furthermore, William concludes that Venantius was translating the book as he succumbed to the poison. Berengar found him and, fearing exposure, disposed of the body in pig's blood before claiming the book and dying in the baths. Malachi was coaxed by Jorge to retrieve it from Severinus's storage, where Berengar had displaced it, so he killed Severinus, retrieved the book and died after investigating its contents.

Jorge confirms William's deductions and justifies this course of actions as part of a divine plan, as the deaths correspond in order and symbolism with the Seven trumpets, which call for objects falling from the sky (Adelmo's jump from a tower), pools of blood (Venantius), poison from water (Berengar), bashing of the stars (Severinus' head was crushed with a celestial orb), scorpions (which a delirious Malachi referred to), locusts and fire. This sequence, interpreted throughout the plot (to the verge of being accepted by William himself) as the deliberate work of a serial killer, was in fact the chance result of Jorge's scheme. He consumes the book's poisoned pages and uses Adso's lantern to start a fire, which burns down the library, and then spreads to destroy the abbey as a whole.

Adso summons the monks in a futile attempt to extinguish the fire. As the fire spreads to the rest of the abbey, William laments his failure. Confused and defeated, William and Adso escape the abbey. Years later, Adso, now aged, returns to the ruins of the abbey and salvages any remaining book scraps and fragments from the fire, eventually creating a lesser library.


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