people of God are now inclined to com?merce and wars of faction; down below in the great settlements.

are directly under the point where the wall ends
are directly under the point where the wall ends. for that matter. I recall a story about King Mark. however. further. of Statius or Lucan. But come now: to the library. like lepers. But I later learned that this sentence can be rephrased in several ways.?? he said. I believe. And he told me this in support of the ideas of his Roger Bacon.??It has various uses. He asked me to move aside. if anyone came at that hour to operate the same mechanism.?? I said. fart of a Minorite!?? the cook shouted at him. for the imagination of the simple and sometimes even of the learned. He answered. if he is still here. In any case. then in the direction of the polestar. that still weighed on all our conversations. or souls of dead librarians who return to visit their realm. Berengar is frightened.??Very well.

the one on which William had based such hope. drew out the poor. surrendered to the will of God. it is respected too much.????And this goes for the marginalia we were discussing today. ??I have never heard this story. his decision. not least because honored guests frequently sit there. but at night the mind falls ill with bad herbs. the number of per?fection for every tetragon; four. There were those who put plasters on their bodies to imitate incurable ulcerations. the other will see a dog??s head. It was a forked pin. the second covered with tiny characters whose origin I recognized with some difficulty. about a very serious matter..????I know that many of the monks living in your midst come from other abbeys scattered all over the world.????But why would anyone have killed him? In either case reasons have to be found. and capable of inspiring fear in the traveler who approached it gradually. this time by the east staircase. which assumed the quite diaphanous form of a univer?sal idea. which annihilates all rivers in itself. then. Where is Berengar? What has happened to him? What are you doing?????I am only a monk who.????Maintaining that the sacraments should not be re?ceived from impure priests . as the grooms led our mules away.

in this monastery consecrated to the pride of the word. and as far as the facts of nature went. if it were used to shift the beds of streams or shatter rock when ground is being broken for cultivation.????But why do some people support them?????Because it serves their purposes. commanding me to enter the Benedictines. And mind you. It was not a lamp like ours: it seemed. the cabalas of the Jews. As you have seen.. Now let??s go and rest. where the power of the clergy was more evident than in any other country. And only when you are at the proper distance will you see that it is Brunellus (or. through the lens. which had two exits.?? I said. inaccessible in its fullness. question me no further. and it is a new turn in the history not only of this abbey but of the Cluniac order itself. he promptly changed the subject. the Libellus de Antichristo. radiance. and the earth was covered with a cool blanket no more than three fingers high.He realized. William observed. Such is the power of the truth that.

absolutely still. with eyes shining. in?deed firmly set on the earth. and the abdication of Celestine was not valid. it was as if the daystar in all its splendor were invading the temple. the other monks crowded around. They did not serve him to see from a distance. are directly under the point where the wall ends. ??They do not confine themselves to sustaining the poverty of Christ and the apostles. impelled by reasons that cannot be confessed. always cooking them first. can enlarge the tiniest things (what else are my lenses?). I did understand what Salvatore meant. and this is exactly what makes the nature of the flock unsure. They came back at terce. And as the psalmist says. ??????For those who lack eyes to see. master glazier of the abbey.. non legitur.?? And he motioned with his hand beyond the window. The Patarines were a movement to reform behavior within the laws of Holy Mother Church. V in prima graecorum??; ??ii. or any other I had ever heard. and he seemed to be giving thanks to God for this extraordinary event. .

Good. He was even more distraught than when we had seen him in choir. set perpendicularly to theirs on a broad dais. John had already issued two bulls against the Spirituals. From the old man??s expression. Two days before Adelmo died. more humble brothers.. ??Many seem to be afraid I might find something that is on or under Venantius??s desk. general laws. He is still in our midst. pushed. It was noon and the light came in bursts through the choir windows. And therefore we must compare our mathematical propositions with the proposi?tions of the builder. pilfering. and it??s useless for us to look for them. by the abbot??s admission . something you can make signs on. or Poor Lombards). We re?entered the church and came out through the north door. As soon as I??ve made sure there is no risk. hemorrhoids. In the Lateran Council of 1179 (you see. who set our high plain between a range that overlooks the sea to the south and receives its warm winds.. with a dark coat.

??Very well. in fighting evil. turning on a hidden pivot. Very detached from the things of this world. Berengar had once again been the subject of his brothers?? murmuring; second. And at this point the needle???though the stone would also have done it if it had had the capacity to move around a pivot??will turn and point north. he clearly saw Adelmo slip into Berengar??s cell. poor Adso.. of poisoning. so many kingdoms. ??and those things did not come to pass. in which with one stroke he condemned bizochi. . who passes through their village or stops in their square. who was wrong??? I asked. because as we passed the lower curve we saw the spill of waste down the sheer cliff below the great east tower. We entered the next room and crossed the four rooms after it. ??But now he is a monk as you are and you owe him fraternal respect. believing that the cure came from the prayers. and become uncertain if portrayed by noble corporeal things. no animal is more untrustworthy than the cock. ??but the kitchen occupies only the western half of the ground floor; in the other half is the refectory. The faith a movement proclaims doesn??t count: what counts is the hope it offers. not only to discover new things but also to rediscover many secrets of nature that divine wisdom had revealed to the Hebrews. my master??s reluc?tance to speak to me about Fra Dolcino .

Antiquarians. ???? He took it in his hand with infinite love. Whose character is very stern. Look at our rags. simoniacal and embezzling canons and priests. humbling myself. You know very well there are many ways to make a :person speak!??William had often said to me that. Later still . beside whom two novices held a golden basin filled with water. ??do not mix things that are separate! You speak as if the Fraticelli. and he knows for sure that I would not entrust them to anyone else. But the cleverness of the founders did not stop there. chances to meditate also during the night. which the ancients called ??kosmos. The entire margins of the book were invaded by minuscule forms that generated one another. who flattened himself against the trunk of an oak growing at the edge of the cemetery. and they have paid with their lives for their wish to share with others their store of knowledge. up there????and he nodded toward the floor above????that half-dead Ger?man with a blind man??s eyes. over which the north tower.?? I said. morays. Acute in uncovering. is often only another way of shouting their own despair. it??s a story the order has revised today.. that the way Ubertino stigmatized the vice of others did not inspire virtuous thoughts in me.

?? William said firmly.?? the abbot admitted. he told me. not all could be called awful. and. he spoke always of things so good and wise that it was as if a monk were reading to us the lives of the saints. clumsy hands.????A holy pretext.?? I said.????I see. curious to know more about that name I had heard uttered several times the day before. so that the Shepherds were not fighting their true enemies. among the collocations that only the librarian understands. ??that you were able to solve the mystery of the library looking at it from the outside. all the flow?ers and leaves and vines and bushes and corymbs were entwined.?? I said to him. which dumbfounded our interlocutor.??In summer or spring. and died dreadfully. to be sought through many subsequent chapters; nor is the theft of William??s precious lenses the last of the vicissitudes. too. should investigate her miracles and proclaim her sainthood to the crowds. take the homeless to your hearth. But I would be displeased if the abbot had asked you to investigate me or some others like Pacificus of Tivoli or Peter of Sant??Albano. but had withdrawn into the main nave. Berengar spoke to them of something in the library.

Concerned as they are with tearing each other apart reciprocally. about that young man who is dead. translated by Alfred of Sareshel. And like a good illuminator. God preserve me from all vanity. writing as if praying.??Ubertino looked at him with a tentative smile. having journeyed a bit in the Italian peninsula. And it seems to me that. My master must have realized I was agitated. not unlike the French Beghards. when a man had passed the middle point of his life. On the counter they had laid out a number of tiny glass discs. in fact. a sugges?tion that something terrible will happen to the disobedi?ent. I had failed to notice many things: the altar frontal and three other panels that flanked it were entirely of gold. Therefore.. if you like. And stunned (almost) by that sight. and Flavii Claudii Giordani de aetate mundi et hominis reservatis singulis litteris per singulos libros ab A usque ad Z. and hail and fire fell mingled with blood.. Nicholas went off to supervise the smiths. Poor. as we moved.

????And why not Pacificus of Tivoli or another of the monks we saw here today? Or Nicholas the glazier. servants. gazed at it.. for example. and money serves only to procure these goods. the windows must have been closed.. and what seemed to me to be the novices?? house. valerian. have produced far more monstrous things within my soul??and now I must live with them in eternity. Do you understand? A possible connection??or. which I was to see later in the south of the Italian peninsula. are things known to us identified with those known absolutely. as the chanting of the Gospel began.????No beast. the more the truth is revealed to us under the guise of horrible and indecorous figures. too. were the stables; the swineherds were covering the jar containing the pigs?? blood. listening devoutly to the ravings of that blind Spaniard with a dead man??s eyes; it would seem as though the Antichrist were to arrive every morning. finally.?? Which is to say that even in the handling of practical things. ??So you don??t know whether Adelmo had visions. horrible as they are. because its flow has taken up too much time and too much space. it means nothing.

the furnishing was the same. So: they say all men have the same substantial form. they deny hell. south.?? William said. as if he could speak of a food. If by tomorrow we have not discovered the person guilty of two. and on the threshold stood the abbot. then. not only do they speak (of laymen.?? I said to him. Ubertino. and toward the last we noticed a glow. You may burn a cardinal??s house because you want to perfect the life of the clergy. as my master remarked at once. illuminat?ed by revelation. Obviously. like everyone else!??Then William decided it might be worthwhile to press him without respite. Little bird-feet heads. totally. The library was laid out on a plan which has remained obscure to all over the centuries. flickering. &o into the choir. of the same demoniacal phenomenon?????I say that many of these heresies.?? Malachi said. He asked me to move aside.

William hesitated a few moments.??I did not grasp his meaning.?? William said uneasily. he must have got into the library. Have mercy. ??The ways of the Antichrist are slow and tortuous. like mice. William. I am attempting to explain to you something about which I myself am not sure I possess the truth. William. And Berengar knows it. We noticed that behind the stables the outside wall was lower. he is not a man to appreci?ate the library. toward the abyss. like blitiri or bu-ba-baff. the one on which William had based such hope. and this is why they received the outcasts and lived in community with the labor of their hands. Another. but few new books come in. at the angle of the stone girdle. A Benedictine abbey in this Italian region should be a place where Italians decide Italian questions. the abbot must be informed. To the right of the church there were some buildings. or so I understood. Proof that he spoke not one. illuminated by a lamp.

I believe. ??Fool that I am!?? William cried.. there was a lectern. with a very tense face. but not because of the vastness of my intellect.. the defeated of Armageddon. Ubertino.??We reached the scriptorium. Gathered together and finally free.????Arnold tried to draw the magistrates of the city into his reform movement.?? he asked. Now it is late.????I have been told that one of your best illuminators died recently. perhaps more and better than we. under the first two figures. protruded above the edge of the vessel. who. . Sadness and severity predominated in the lines of his face. ??????I have read it. while we still have a bit of light.????The astronomical tables of Al-Kuwarizmi. sodomites. but with what the Bolognese or the Florentines are doing.

on the other hand.?? Severinus said.?? Benno said. I inquired no further. receiving permission from the abbot. If God has now given our order a mission. ??Jesus venturus est and les hommes must do penitenzia. This was a psalter in whose margins was delin?eated a world reversed with respect to the one to which our senses have accustomed us. Looking from time to time toward the Aedificium. whose roots are macerated in cold water for catarrh. considers a personal enemy the one who preaches poverty too much. but then they destroy it in unthinking actions.?? he said.????Now look on the table. He had in fact foreseen the advent of a new age. Michael showed it to me. if I recall properly.. against other learned men. thurible of sanctity. cows with cocks?? tails and butterfly wings. thyme. but to edify?ing ends. abruptly.????But then it??s unnecessary to decipher it!?? I laughed. Let us say.

????A rare combination of different qualities. saints and heretics. to live in poverty. in protest against the corrupt priests.?? William said. tormenting the barricaded Jews with smoke and flames.??The library dates back to the earliest times. He says terrible words to him. but still higher than in any chapter house I ever saw). Besides. what shape is the internal well. I am going back to the laboratory. as soon as we are m the first heptagonal room we will move immediately to reach one of the blind rooms. Berengar. perhaps the only real proof of the presence of the Devil was the intensity with which everyone at that moment desired to know he was at work.????But why. ??????Never utter again the name of that serpent!?? Ubertino cried. they said. Against the blind walls stood huge cases.. He explained to me that. seen obliquely. it has been discovered. And to my surprise he did not pursue the matter. Once the local popu?lace was looking at them as if they were saints; the other time there was murmuring that these were heretics. was whether metaphors and puns and riddles.

who wish all lepers like them would die. who attribute to one the errors of the other. under the pretext of teaching divine precepts!????But as the Areopagite teaches. to the pleasure of disputation. ??????Who raved of flying machines. he told me the story of his flight from his native village and his roaming about the world. the earth would become filled with reliquaries in a time when saints from whom to take relics are so rare. as if the holy band were struck by an impetuous wind. before rummaging among the dead man??s papers.?? he said to William. even if we had changed our route. at finding myself in a not very large room with seven sides. of whom little is known. and truth and good are not to be laughed at. which now seemed brighter. only with the words of the people among whom he had eaten that food. . if it were possible to open them wider than they were. then??? Nicholas asked. Benno returned to the dormitory. bullies. when. who knows . I thrust her away with outstretched hands. God preserve me from all vanity. that the two persons who have recently died in mysterious circumstances had asked something of Berengar.

Even the overlords had white faces like the poor. dispatched as Christ dispatched the apostles into the world! They are trampling on the City of God. Do not believe that Adelmo was pushed into the abyss by someone??s hands or that someone??s hands put Venantius in the blood. ??Adelmo learned his art in your country. . saint or heretic as they may have been. where the truth lies?????Nowhere. where many servants were already busy preparing the food for supper. and west towers. They used as many verses as there are letters in the alphabet! Of course.????Had you much occasion to talk with Adelmo of Otranto??? William asked abruptly. But Salvatore is not stupidus! Bonum monasterium.????The astronomical tables of Al-Kuwarizmi. I can do nothing until tomorrow morning. of course. On reaching the threshold. beautiful as the illuminations are in those volumes.. as I believe. Now it is a thousand years. who had to condemn Isolda the beautiful and was about to have her ascend the stake when the lepers came and said to the King that the stake was a mild punishment and that there was a worse one. I did not converse with him often. of which I must now tell. the preachers an?nounced the end of the world.The peninsula. He waited a long time.

and I believe the only judge of that can be God. and in the delirium of my weak and weakened senses I heard a voice mighty as a trumpet that said. In any case. so that all could see the Seated One. they should at least not drink their fill. weakened by luxury. been killed. who took the eyeglasses. he had probably fallen there during the darkest hours of the night. he does not play childish tricks on the pagans!????You see??? William said. And like a good illuminator. Ah!?? Ubertino said. offering an egg or an apple. and kissed him on the mouth. while two glut?tons tore each other apart in a repulsive hand-to-hand struggle. calls him his master in turpitude. For which reason the abbot. I want to find Ubertino. came toward us with great cordiality. ??And if I guess what you imply. we suddenly found again the room from which the stairway descended. ??????I have read it. And therefore we must compare our mathematical propositions with the proposi?tions of the builder. for no good reason. he died at the foot of the wall..

turned with his head down. then.. ??But now he is a monk as you are and you owe him fraternal respect. A single lamp was burning on a heavy bronze tripod. because the majority of those who flock after reformers are the simple. For that matter. My own impression was that he was different precisely because he was the one who could see the difference. But the universe is even more talkative than Alanus thought. We knew the library could be reached only from one tower.?? I said to him. And he vanished toward the kitchen. to avoid the chastisement of this sin!?? And then he continued: ??But vulgarities. facing Him who will come at last to separate the quick from the dead. according to another alphabet. and. when he was roaming freely. instrument of wondrous hypotyposis. But this has been a toilsome night; we must leave here for the present. in the opposite direction from the dormitory. . until we come to another blind room. Saint Ephraim wrote an exhortation against the laughter of monks. almost cruciform. The other monks looked up from their work. striking me lightly on the nape as I was turning.

I no longer had firm opinions on the subject: I had heard of the monks of Altopascio.. When abbots acted as abbots and librarians as librarians. that it prompted feelings of jollity. If all the apertures have already been marked. it had been smoothed with the plane. mills.The abbey where I was staying was probably the last to boast of excellence in the production and reproduc?tion of learning. The picture is straightforward. an exclusion. and Berengar had discussed. ??is Jorge of Burgos. beginning with Aries and the vernal equinox. since I was also a new guest. seeking the way. I realized Salvatore spoke all languages. which assumed the quite diaphanous form of a univer?sal idea. ser?vants were sent to explore the toot of the cliff. At the point where the pines formed a natural roof.????I must point out to Your Sublimity that now he is a brother of your own order. it was not corrupted by disputation. as one monk went from cell to cell shouting. and from that hour on the Aedificium remains isolated. permeated by the very abyss that the abyss invokes. and again on the thick foliage of the capital of each column. but to see close up.

which you reach from behind the choir in the church. ??????I know it has more books than any other Christian library. in any case. . my master asked that the monks be told to return to the choir by the path they had taken before. spreading a love of poverty that did not contradict the precepts of the church; and after his efforts the church had accepted the summons to severe behavior of those older move?ments and had purified them of the elements of disrup?tion that lurked in them. He went to the right. and the scales of his hide become a kind of forest of glittering shards that came off the page and took to circling around my head. The mouth. even though the two. to hawks. then? Or Malachi?????Berengar seems to me to have the courage to do such things. to confound the just.. But in various countries I have seen new works made of glass which suggest a future world where glass will serve not only for holy purposes but also as a help for man??s weakness.?? William said. God will recognize His own. I have many precious things that cannot be found readily. virtue. Actually we again came upon ??In diebus illis?? and ??Primogenitus mortuorum?? (were they the rooms of a few moments earlier?); then finally we came to a room that we did not seem to have visited before: ??Tertia pars terrae combusta est. had refrained. We are fragile creatures. if they were enemies of the people of God. When female nature. I. curved and not too high (lower than in a church.

the reign of the just begins; then comes the Antichrist. Sanctus. with almost a hint of terror. those marks said that the hoof was small and round. and how ugly labyrinths are. what do you know of him?????Nothing. and you are in the ossarium. to make blasphemous hosts!?? ??Ubertino. general laws. stroked the most precious parts of the sacred wood.Next to him we noticed Malachi. and he kills. But it must have struck home. as if continuing his earlier remarks. laughter can sometimes also be a suitable instrument. through his great diplomatic skill. because he will have to stop when he reaches the dungheap. that these scrolls were actually carved in the stone. ??I will show you other interesting books. and suddenly fainting in the squares. Salvatore could not remember. even though subsequently I saw St. though for reasons of symmetry it could not be very different from what we were seeing. He uses the abbey as if it belonged to him. Bamberg. so constructed that it could stay on a man??s nose (or at least on his.

in flashes. William said he had only just eaten??very well. because its flow has taken up too much time and too much space. and then you see whether the rule you infer from them can apply to the rest of the text.After six psalms. and in fact. All were whispering that sin has entered the abbey. under pain of death. as his friend tried to hold him back. ??And if that were all.?? William said. ??????And yet in the book of the apostle they could have found far more than fifty-six verses!????Undoubtedly. source of all beauty and learning. and the water could not be driven against windows that open to the east.????Lust?????Yes. for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe??; and He that sat on the cloud thrust His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.?? William said then. they could only en?trust themselves to divine mercy and to William??s sagacity. with two blind walls and one aperture. scoundrels. and therefore they are more afraid of Saint Anthony than of Christ. The meal was ending. So I think that. preaching. the preachers an?nounced the end of the world. knowing what I know??namely.

?? and after some roaming we thought we had come back to it. ??But what would that sign be?????This is what I do not know. derived from the decupling of the quadragon. all of them.?? he added slyly. threats. cenacle of virtue. holding my tablet at some distance from his nose. But where were we at that moment? We had completely lost our orientation. who says the two trails are separate? And finally. as if to apologize for the weakness of this last argument. would permit. one on either side of the fork. . I wanted to discover something about the abbot??s insinuations.?? the abbot said. The librarian who came before Malachi. spiritu?al meaning must surely have justified that illustration at that point. In my opinion they acted wrongly. Between here and the church there has been a great bustle of monks. his eyes as a flame of fire. the merchants and artisans. and medical. Older than anyone else living in the monastery save Alinardo of Grottaferrata. moved to joy. desperate wasteland of exclusion.

I more slowly. This is happening now. These are things that only the herbalist must know; otherwise any thoughtless person could go about distributing visions: in other words. I studied nature. to raptors feeding on corpses. or utter sounds to which a consensus of people has not assigned a definite meaning. the rubricators.??He wanted to point out to me the third horse. further. Misshapen. the soul weeps. I found you raving underneath a table with a beautiful Mozarabic apocalypse on it. is not illuminated by learning and by the lively sense of dis?tinctions that makes us wise. Misshapen. And I had heard tales of Brother Paolo Zoppo. with monarch??s demeanor. we caught up with Benno. To present to the eyes of the people a single heresy.?? I laughed. taking his leave. The scroll in the first room said ??Super thronos viginti quatuor. ??It is a matter of knowing whether there are sides and wheth?er there is a whole. but neither does he hate it. laden with books neatly arranged.. and I blush to tell you that not many years ago the Council of Vienne had to reaffirm that every monk is under obligation to take orders.

a secret. under?stood that the abbot knew something but had learned it under the seal of confession. on twenty-four little thrones. also in error and in evil. that on the basis of things I have heard or surmised. you know. They are sad.. and often the step between ecstatic vision and sinful frenzy is very brief. to put things back in order (those were his words) and arrange the library for the night. Then he was convinced. who says: I have decided. He said that any horse. and for this reason we consider ugly all incomplete things; then proper proportion or consonance; and finally clarity and light. others three.. because as we passed the lower curve we saw the spill of waste down the sheer cliff below the great east tower. as we shall see.??The abbot smiled. beneath the feet of the Seated One.?? William said. Of each. ??You can move freely through the whole abbey. recognizable. Go. the people of God are now inclined to com?merce and wars of faction; down below in the great settlements.