In the winter of 1327, William of Baskerville, an English Franciscan with a sharp, empirical mind, arrives at a Benedictine abbey in the mountains of northern Italy, accompanied by Adso of Melk, a young Benedictine novice who narrates the story many years later. William has come to help prepare a tense theological debate between papal envoys and Franciscan representatives over the poverty of Christ.
Soon after their arrival a young monk is found dead, and more deaths follow over seven days. The abbot asks William to investigate, and his inquiries lead toward the abbey's vast library, a forbidden maze of rooms guarded jealously by the monks, and toward a mysterious book that someone is willing to kill to protect. The Inquisition's arrival raises the stakes further.
Eco, a semiotics professor, packs the novel with medieval philosophy, heresy, Latin quotations and debates about laughter and knowledge, while keeping a detective plot that nods to Sherlock Holmes. William Weaver's translation made it an international bestseller, it won Italy's Strega Prize, and it was filmed with Sean Connery in 1986.
Book details
| Author | Umberto Eco |
|---|---|
| First published | 1980 |
| Original language | Italian |
| Translated by | William Weaver |
| Genre | Mystery |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 536 |
| Setting | A Benedictine abbey in northern Italy, November 1327 |
| Awards | Strega Prize 1981 |
Themes
- Knowledge and censorship
- Faith versus reason
- Heresy
- Power of the Church
- Interpretation of signs
Who should read it
Readers who enjoy intellectual mysteries steeped in history, philosophy and medieval detail.