"The Name of the Rose" is a book with a mystery. At the beginning of the 14th century, shortly after Dante composed the “Divine Comedy,” bodies are found in the heart of Europe, in a Benedictine monastery. Blood flows; spheres of the sky are torn open…
The main characters—William of Baskerville and his young companion Adso of Melk—have to investigate the death of a certain Adelmus, a monk from the Benedictine abbey. The action takes place at the end of November 1327, in an unnamed place with a foggy reference to the border of Liguria, Piedmont, and France—that is, northwestern Italy. The plot unfolds over a week. William, whose original goal was to prepare a meeting between the theologians of Pope John XXII and Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria (Ludwig IV der Bayer), now must confirm his reputation as a man of learning—and in the past, a famous inquisitor.