by Umberto Eco
“They are unquestionably things written by Venantius. You can see for yourself: this is not an ancient parchment. And these must be notes taken down while he was reading the book; otherwise Venantius would not have written in Greek. He has certainly copied, condensing them, some sentences he found in the book stolen from the finis Africae. He carried it to the scriptorium and began to read it, noting down what seemed to him noteworthy. Then something happened. Either he felt ill, or he heard someone coming up. So he put the book, with his notes, under his desk, probably planning to pick it up again the next evening. In any case, this page is our only possible starting point in re-creating the nature of the mysterious book, and it’s only from the nature of that book that we will be able to infer the nature of the murderer. For in every crime committed to possess an object, the nature of the object should give us an idea, however faint, of the nature of the assassin. If someone kills for a handful of gold, he will be a greedy person; if for a book, he will be anxious to keep for himself the secrets of that book. So we must find out what is said in the book we do not have.”
“And from these few lines will you be able to understand what that book is?”
“Dear Adso, these seem like the words of a holy text, whose meaning goes beyond the letter. Reading them this morning, after we had spoken with the cellarer, I was struck by the fact that here, too, there are references to the humble folk and to peasants as bearers of a truth different from that of the wise. The cellarer hinted that some strange complicity bound him to Malachi. Can Malachi have hidden a dangerous heretical text that Remigio had entrusted to him? Then Venantius would have read and annotated some mysterious instructions concerning a community of rough and base men in revolt against everything and everybody. But . . .”
“But?”
“But two facts work against this hypothesis of mine. The first is that Venantius didn’t seem interested in such questions: he was a translator of Greek texts, not a preacher of heresies. The other is that sentences like the ones about the figs and the stone and the cicadas would not be explained by this first hypothesis. . . .”
“Perhaps they are riddles with another meaning,” I ventured. “Or do you have another hypothesis?”
“I have, but it is still vague. It seemed to me, as I read this page, that I had read some of these words before, and some phrases that are almost the same, which I have seen elsewhere, return to my mind. It seems to me, indeed, that this page speaks of something there has been talk about during these past days. . . . But I cannot recall what. I must think it over. Perhaps I’ll have to read other books.”
“Why? To know what one book says you must read others?”
“At times this can be so. Often books speak of other books. Often a harmless book is like a seed that will blossom into a dangerous book, or it is the other way around: it is the sweet fruit of a bitter stem. In reading Albert, couldn’t I learn what Thomas might have said? Or in reading Thomas, know what Averroës said?”
“True,” I said, amazed. Until then I had thought each book spoke of the things, human or divine, that lie outside books. Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they spoke among themselves. In the light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a long, centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors.
“But then,” I said, “what is the use of hiding books, if from the books not hidden you can arrive at the concealed ones?”
“Over the centuries it is no use at all. In a space of years or days it has some use. You see, in fact, how bewildered we are.”
“And is a library, then, an instrument not for distributing the truth but for delaying its appearance?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“Not always and not necessarily. In this case it is.”
Sext
In which Adso goes hunting for truffles and sees the Minorites arriving, they confer at length with William and Ubertino, and very sad things are learned about John XXII.
After these considerations my master decided to proceed no further. I have already said that he occasionally had moments of total inactivity, as if the ceaseless cycle of the stars had stopped, and he with it and with them. And so it was that morning. He stretched out on his pallet, staring into the void, his hands folded on his chest, barely moving his lips, as if he were reciting a prayer, but irregularly and without devotion.
I thought he was thinking, and I resolved to respect his meditation. I returned to the courtyard and saw that the sun had grown weaker. Beautiful and clear as it had been, the morning (as the day approached the completion of its first half) was becoming damp and misty. Heavy clouds moved from the north and were invading the top of the mountain, covering it with a light brume. It seemed to be fog, and perhaps fog was also rising from the ground, but at that altitude it was difficult to distinguish the mists that rose from below and those that came down from above. It was becoming hard to discern the bulk of the more distant buildings.
I saw Severinus gaily assembling the swineherds and some of their animals. He told me he was going to descend along the mountain slopes, and into the valley, to hunt for truffles. I wasn’t familiar with that choice fruit of the underbrush, which was found in the peninsula and seemed typical especially of the Benedictine domains, whether at Norcia—the black ones—or in these lands—the white and more aromatic. Severinus explained to me what a truffle was, and how tasty, when prepared in the most diverse ways. And he told me it was very difficult to find, because it was hidden underground, more secret than a mushroom, and the only animals capable of unearthing it were pigs, following their smell. But on finding it they wanted to devour it themselves, and they had to be chased off at once, so that you could step in and dig up the truffle. I learned later that many lords did not disdain to join this hunt, following the pigs as if they were noblest hounds, and followed, in turn, by servants with hoes. I remember, indeed, that in later years a lord of my country, knowing I was acquainted with Italy, asked me why, as he had seen down there, some lords went out to pasture their pigs; and I laughed, realizing that, on the contrary, they were going in search of truffles. But when I told him that these lords hoped to find the “truffle” underground, to eat it, he thought I had said they were seeking “der Teufel,” the Devil, and he blessed himself devoutly, looking at me in amazement. Then the misunderstanding was cleared up and we both laughed at it. Such is the magic of human languages, that by human accord often the same sounds mean different things.
My curiosity aroused by Severinus’s preparations, I decided to follow him, also because I realized he was turning to this hunt in order to forget the sad events that oppressed everyone; and I thought that in helping him to forget his thoughts I would perhaps, if not forget, at least restrain my own. Nor will I deny, since I have determined to write always and only the truth, that I was secretly lured by the idea that, down in the valley, I might perhaps glimpse someone I will not mention. But to myself and almost aloud I declared that, since the two legations were expected to arrive that day, I might perhaps sight one of them.
As we gradually descended the curves of the mountain, the air became clearer. Not that the sun returned, for the upper part of the sky was heavy with clouds, but things stood out sharply, even as the fog remained above our heads. Indeed, when we had gone some distance, I turned to look up at the top of the mountain and could no longer see anything. From the halfway point upward, the summit, the high plain, the Aedificium—everything had disappeared among the clouds.
The morning of our arrival, when we were already among the mountains, at certain bends it was still possible to view the sea, no more than ten miles away, perhaps even less. Our journey had been rich in surprises, because suddenly we would find ourselves on a kind of terrace in the mo
untain, which fell sharply down to beautiful bays, and then a little later we would enter deep chasms, where mountains rose among mountains, and one blocked from another the sight of the distant shore, while the sun could hardly force its way into the deep valleys. Never before had I seen, as I saw in that part of Italy, such narrow and sudden juttings of sea and mountains, of shores followed by alpine landscapes, and in the wind that whistled among the gorges you could catch the alternate conflict of the marine balms with icy mountain gusts.
That morning, however, all was gray, almost milky white, and there were no horizons even when the gorges opened out toward the distant shores. But I am dwelling on recollections of little interest as far as my story goes. So I will not narrate the ups and downs of our search for “der Teufel,” and I will tell, rather, of the legation of Friars Minor, which I was the first to sight. I ran at once to the monastery to inform William.
My master waited till the newcomers had entered and been greeted by the abbot according to the ritual. Then he went to meet the group, and there was a series of fraternal embraces and salutations.
The meal hour had already passed, but a table had been set for the guests, and the abbot thoughtfully left us among them; alone with William, exempted from the obligations of the Rule, they were free to eat and at the same time exchange their impressions. After all, it was, God forgive me the unpleasant simile, like a council of war, to be held as quickly as possible before the enemy host, namely the Avignon legation, could arrive.
Needless to say, the newcomers also promptly met Ubertino, whom all greeted with surprise, joy, veneration inspired not only by his long absence and by the fears surrounding his disappearance, but also by the qualities of that courageous warrior who for decades had fought their same battle.
Of the friars that made up the group I will speak later, when I tell about the next day’s meeting. For that matter, I talked very little with them at first, involved as I was in the three-man conference promptly established between William, Ubertino, and Michael of Cesena.
Michael was most ardent in his Franciscan passion (he had at times the gestures, the accents of Ubertino in his moments of mystical transport) but very jovial in his earthly nature, a man of the Romagna, capable of appreciating a good table and happy to be among his friends. Subtle and evasive, he could abruptly become sly and clever as a fox, elusive as a mole, when problems of relations among the mighty were touched upon; capable of great outbursts of laughter, fervid tensions, eloquent silences, deft in turning his gaze away from his interlocutor if the latter’s question required him to conceal, with what seemed absent-mindedness, his refusal to reply.
I have already said something about him, and those were things I had heard said, but now I understood better many of his contradictory attitudes and the sudden changes of political strategy that in recent years had amazed his own friends and followers. Minister general of the order of the Friars Minor, he was in principle the heir of Saint Francis, and actually the heir of his interpreters: he had to compete with the sanctity and wisdom of such a predecessor as Bonaventure of Bagnoregio; he had to assure respect for the Rule and, at the same time, the fortunes of the order, so powerful and vast; he had to keep an eye on the courts and on the city magistrates from whom the order, though in the guise of alms, received gifts and bequests, source of prosperity and wealth; and at the same time he had to make sure that the requirement of penance did not lead the more ardent Spirituals to abandon the order, scattering that splendid community of which he was the head, in a constellation of bands of heretics. He had to please the Pope, the Emperor, the Friars of the Poor Life, and Saint Francis, who was certainly watching over him from heaven, as well as the Christian people, who were watching him from the earth. When John had condemned all Spirituals as heretics, Michael had not hesitated to hand over to him five of the most unruly friars of Provence, allowing the Pontiff to burn them at the stake. But realizing (and Ubertino may have had some share in this) that many in the order sympathized with the followers of evangelical simplicity, Michael had then acted in such a way that the chapter of Perugia, four years later, took up the demands of the burned men, naturally trying to reconcile a need, which could be heretical, with the ways and institutions of the order, and trying to harmonize the desires of the order and those of the Pope. But, as Michael was busy convincing the Pope, without whose consent he would have been unable to proceed, he had been willing also to accept the favors of the Emperor and the imperial theologians. Two years before the day I saw him he had yet enjoined his monks, in the chapter general of Lyons, to speak of the Pope’s person only with moderation and respect (and this was just a few months after the Pope, referring to the Minorites, had complained of “their yelping, their errors, their insanities”). But here he was at table, friendly, with persons who spoke of the Pope with less than no respect.
I have already told the rest of the story. John wanted him at Avignon. He himself wanted and did not want to go, and the next day’s meeting was to decide on the form and guarantees of a journey that should not appear as an act of submission or as an act of defiance. I don’t believe Michael had ever met John personally, at least not as pope. In any event, he hadn’t seen him for a long time, and Michael’s friends hastened to paint the portrait of that simoniac in the darkest hues.
“One thing you must learn,” William said to him, “is never to trust his oaths, which he always maintains to the letter, violating their substance.”
“Everyone knows,” Ubertino said, “what happened at the time of his election. . . .”
“I wouldn’t call it an election, but an imposition!” one man at the table cried, a man I later heard them call Hugh of Newcastle, whose accent was similar to my master’s. “For that matter, the death of Clement the Fifth itself was never very clear. The King had never forgiven him for having promised to try Boniface the Eighth posthumously and then doing everything he could to avoid repudiating his predecessor. Nobody really knows how Clement died, at Carpentras. The fact is that when the cardinals met in Carpentras for the conclave, the new Pope didn’t materialize, because (quite rightly) the argument shifted to the choice between Avignon and Rome. I don’t know exactly what happened at that time—it was a massacre, I’m told—with the cardinals threatened by the nephew of the dead Pope, their servants slaughtered, the palace set afire, the cardinals appealing to the King, who says he never wanted the Pope to desert Rome and they should be patient and make a good choice. . . . Then Philip the Fair died, again God only knows how. . . .”
“Or the Devil knows,” Ubertino said, blessing himself, in which he was imitated by all the others.
“Or the Devil knows,” Hugh agreed, with a sneer. “Anyway, another king succeeds, survives eighteen months, and dies. His newborn heir also dies in a few days’ time, and the regent, the King’s brother, assumes the throne. . . .”
“And this is Philip the Fifth. The very one who, when he was still Count of Poitiers, stopped the cardinals who were fleeing from Carpentras,” Michael said.
“Yes,” Hugh went on. “He puts them again into conclave in Lyons, in the Dominicans’ convent, swearing he will defend their safety and not keep them prisoner. But once they place themselves in his power, he does not just have them locked up (which is the custom, after all), but every day reduces their food until they come to a decision. And each one promises to support his claim to the throne. When he does assume the throne, the cardinals are so weary of being prisoners after two years, and so afraid of staying there for the rest of their lives, eating badly, that they agree to everything, the gluttons, and on the throne of Peter they put that gnome, who is now over seventy. . . .”
“Gnome, yes, true,” Ubertino said, laughing. “And rather consumptive-looking, but stronger and shrewder than anyone thought!”
“Son of a cobbler,” one of the legates grumbled.
“Christ was the son of a carpenter,” Ubertino reproached him. “That is not the point. He is a cultivated man, he studied law at Mo
ntpellier and medicine in Paris, he cultivated his friendships in the ways best suited to win the episcopal seats and the cardinal’s hat when it seemed opportune to him, and as counselor of Robert the Wise in Naples he amazed many with his acumen. When Bishop of Avignon, he gave all the right advice (right, that is, for the outcome of that squalid venture) to Philip the Fair about how to ruin the Templars. And after his election he managed to foil a plot of cardinals who wanted to kill him. . . . But this is not what I meant to talk about: I was speaking of his ability to betray vows without being accused of swearing falsely. To be elected, he promised Cardinal Orsini he would return the papal seat to Rome, and when he was elected he swore on the consecrated host that if he were not to keep his promise, he would never mount a horse or a mule again. Well, you know what that fox did? After he had himself crowned in Lyons (against the will of the King, who wanted the ceremony to take place in Avignon), he traveled from Lyons to Avignon by boat!”
The monks all laughed. The Pope was a perjurer, but there was no denying he had a certain ingeniousness.
“He is without shame,” William remarked. “Didn’t Hugh say that John made no attempt to conceal his bad faith? Haven’t you, Ubertino, told about what he said to Orsini on the day of his arrival in Avignon?”
“To be sure,” Ubertino said. “He said to him that the sky of France was so beautiful he could not see why he should set foot in a city full of ruins, like Rome. And inasmuch as the Pope, like Peter, had the power to bind and to loosen, he was now exercising this power: and he decided to remain where he was, where he enjoyed being. And when Orsini tried to remind him that it was his duty to live on the Vatican hill, he recalled him sharply to obedience and broke off the discussion. But I have not finished the story of the oath. On disembarking from the boat, John was to have mounted a white horse, to be followed by the cardinals on black horses, according to tradition. Instead he went to the episcopal palace on foot. Nor have I ever heard of his riding a horse again. And this is the man, Michael, you expect to abide by the guarantees he will give you?”