The Name of the Rose

Adso is the narrator of the novel and the second principle protagonist. He plays dual roles, first as a participant in the novel’s events, which take place when he is a young novice; and, second, as the narrator, the older man looking and often commenting on his younger self. He is inexperienced but anxious to do the right thing. He is virtuous, but also tempted to sin when he has a sexual encounter with the peasant girl. His point of view is our point of view: we experience the events of the novel with him and through him, and we enter into his fears and his desires. We are not given any real physical description of Adso, which contributes to the sense that the reader and Adso are aligned, watching and participating together in the adventures of the book. 

The abbot of the Benedictine monastery in which the novel is set, Abo was raised in the abbey of Fossanova and made his reputation by carrying the body of Thomas Aquinas up the stairs after the revered theologian’s death. (Aquinas really did die in Fossanova, which is one of the many instances in which the novel weaves historical people and events into the narrative.) Abo is a pious man but also someone who is very proud of the monastery’s riches, and its vast and famous library. It is he who asks William to investigate the death of Adelmo of Otranto and the subsequent murders. But when William asks too many questions, Abo dismisses him, for the honor of the abbey is his main concern. His concern for appearances and honor are his downfall, for these qualities cause him to die of suffocation in the end, trapped in his famous library’s stairwell.

The cellarer of the abbey, Remigio is in charge of the cellarium that contains the monastery's supply of food, ale,and wines. He is "a stout man, vulgar in appearance," but also strong and quick (23). He has a checkered past, and at some point, he met up with Salvatore, and engaged him to be his assistant. They arrived together at the abbey many years ago, and it is clear the two men share a history of adventures and misdeeds. During the course of the novel, he reveals that he was a follower of a notorious heretic Fra Dolcino, who was captured and burned by the Inquisition. Remigio reveals that he grew up “in a city family,” but that he was motivated to follow Dolcino because of the “freedom” from authority that the heretic offered (325). Remigio is not a temperate man: he engages Salvatore to find him women for sexual encounters, a practice that eventually gets him and his associate (and a poor peasant girl) arrested. After his arrest, he is put on trial, during which he is condemned not just for his heretical past but also for the murders at the abbey. Despite confessing to these murders—which he does in order to avoid torture—he is not the murderer. Remigio will be tried again at the Papal Court, and will likely be condemned to death.

Although he has taken orders and is a monk, Salvatore, who comes from a family of serfs, wears a “torn and dirty habit” that makes him appear more like a “vagabond” (46). An associate of Remigio’s, the two men have had many adventures together, including being members of the notorious heretical cult, the Dolcinians. Adso tries not to judge Salvatore on his appearance, but he feels that the Devil himself probably looks like this “low creature” (46). His face is covered with eczema, his eyebrows are thick and shaggy, and his nose is a “bone” that rises and sinks into two dark holes of his eyes (46). His mouth is joined to the nose by a scar, and his black teeth are as sharp as a dog’s. He speaks an amalgam of Latin, Italian, French, and other languages from the many places he has lived. Salvatore procures young girls from the village for Remigio to have sex with, and is caught doing so by the inquisitor Bernard Gui, who has him tortured and interrogates him. Along with Remigio, he will be executed by the Inquisition.

ThoughAdelmo was only a young man when he died, he was already a renowned illuminator of manuscripts, and his fellow monks in the scriptorium greatly admired his talents. He is found dead at the foot of the hill beneath the Abbey’s library, prompting the abbot to ask William to solve the mystery. Later we learn that Adelmo, in exchange for learning the library’s secrets, had sex with Berengar, who was in love with him. After committing this carnal sin, Adelmo runs to Jorge for holy confession and then kills himself. 

A Franciscan friar in exile, he has been given refuge by Abo of Fossanova, abbot of the Benedictine monastery in which the novel takes place. He is a longtime and beloved friend of William's, and an impassioned orator, preacher, and courtier. He is revered because of his virtue and his great eloquence, particularly on the subject of Christ’s poverty. But this belief is precisely what has gotten him into trouble with Pope John. Ubertino’s strong belief in the justness of his cause makes him extremely dangerous, and even the inquisitor Bernard Gui will only go after him by stealth, not in the open. When negotiations between the two delegations—imperial and papal—deteriorate, Ubertino must flee the abbey, for his position is too precarious for him to remain there. Ubertino was a historical figure (1259 - c. 1329) who, along with Michael of Cesena, was a leader of the Spirituals, the stricter branch of the Franciscan Order.

The abbey’s herbalist, he is in charge of the balneary, the infirmary, and the gardens. He is a kind and learned man who offers Adso and William a tour of the grounds, and later he helps William perform autopsies on the murdered monks. Like William, he is a man of faith and a man of science: he believes that nature is a book that can and should be studied by man. He is responsible for supplying the hallucinogenic herbs that burn in a censor in the labyrinth, as a way of keeping people away from the secret room. Although he does not divulge this secretat first, William and Adso discover it when Adso faints while exploring the library. It is Severinus who discovers the forbidden book that Berengar has hidden in the infirmary, and he is unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time: Jorge instigates Malachi to retrieve the book and kill the herbalist before he can pass the book safely to William. 

The abbey’s librarian, Malachi is tall, thin, pale, and awkward, with “large melancholy eyes” that are “penetrating” yet also have a “suffering quality” (80). To Adso, he gives the impression of having suppressed “many passions,” with the result that “sadness and severity predominated the lines of his face” (80-81). Though Malachi is respected and even feared, many monks feel that he lacks the intellectual gravity to be librarian, and that he is really just Jorge’s puppet. We learn that Malachi and Berengar had a sexual relationship, but Berengar had lusted for Adelmo and was actively pursuing him. We learn too that Malachi becomes a murderer when he kills Severinus at the instigation of Jorge. We do not know how the blind monk convinces the librarian to commit this crime, but William theorizes that he preyed upon Malachi’s jealousy over Berengar, and somehow made the herbalist look culpable. By murdering the innocent Severinus, Malachi becomes Jorge’s avenger, since Jorge never actually kills with his own hand.

The elderly blind monk is the second-oldest in the Abbey, upwards of seventy years old; he has been at the abbey for more than forty years. His eyes, skin, and face are “white as snow” and he is now “bent under the weight of his years” (87). Despite his body being “withered by age,” his voice is still “majestic and…powerful” (87). Adso notes that, every time Jorge spoke or even moved, it was “as if he still possessed the gift of sight” (88). He was “omnipresent in all corners of the abbey” and especially the scriptorium, where he was esteemed by the monks, who often consulted him on their work—he was “the library’s memory and the soul of the scriptorium” (147-48). He would sit in the scriptorium for hours, asking the monks to read aloud to him, and his lips would move along with the words because he knows so many of the books by heart. An ominous presence throughout the novel, he could be considered a prime suspect, but for his blindness. It is thus striking that Jorge is the mastermind behind the murders, though he refuses to take responsibility for killing anyone. Jorge believes he is “the hand of God” (582), and that the monks’ deaths are part of the divine plan.

The assistant librarian, he is a known homosexual who trades on his professional knowledge in order to receive sexual favors from other monks. Berengar and Malachi have a sexual relationship, but Berengar’s attention has wandered to Adelmo, who was young, handsome, and talented. In order to woo Adelmo, Berengar told him the secret of the finis Africae, and likely showed him the forbidden manuscript, the lost second book of Aristotle’s Poetics. After Adelmo’s death, while being interrogated by William, he claims he saw the ghost of Adelmo walking in the cemetery, but in reality, it was Adelmo himself, right before his suicide. 

He is a translator of manuscripts from the Greek and Arabic and is devoted to Aristotle. He defends the murdered Adelmo as having had only the purest principles and using his imaginative talents to teach the divine meanings of holy texts. Venantius is curious and hungers for the forbidden knowledge contained in the library. This intellectual greed gets him killed, for he succumbs to the poison that Jorge has placed on the forbidden manuscript, which Venantius has stolen from Adelmo’s desk.

A young Scandinavian monk studying rhetoric, Benno is intellectually voracious, and chafes against the restrictions placed on the monks of the scriptorium. It is Benno who tells William and Adso about the sexual liaisons of Adelmo and Berengar. Benno is also the one who reveals that Berengar had mentioned a forbidden secret, the finis Africae, about which Benno desires to learn. When Severinus is murdered, Benno is devious, pretending to help Adso and William with their investigation, but in reality, only assisting them so he can gain access to the forbidden book. He is ambitious as well, and petitions Malachi to be made assistant librarian after Berengar’s death. Once he achieves this post, he is satisfied that he now has access to the library, and is fine with forbidding access to his brother monks. During the fire, Benno runs into the library and is never seen again, a fitting and symbolic end. 

Master glazier of the abbey, Nicholas is fascinated by William’s eyeglasses and seeks to learn how to make them, despite fearing that such knowledge is forbidden by God. Nicholas is in charge of the abbey’s treasure crypt, and is filled with pride at the riches contained therein. With Remigio’s arrest and condemnation, Nicholas is made cellarer, and thus holds two jobs at the abbey. 

Aymaro is a monk who works in the scriptorium, copying works on loan to the library for a few months only. Adso describes him as wearing a “perpetual sneer” on his face, as if “he could never reconcile himself to the fatuousness of all human beings and yet did not attach great importance to this cosmic tragedy” (140). He calls the abbey a “den of madmen” (140), and is a gossipy, resentful man. He is angry that the abbot “has handed the library over to foreigners,” such as Malachi and Jorge, whom he describes as: “that half-dead German with a blind man’s eyes, listening devoutly to the ravings of that blind Spaniard with a dead man’s eyes” (140). He and his cohort resent a series of foreigners has held the esteemed post of librarian, when in the past it was always held by an Italian. For this reason, William refers to this group as ‘the Italians.’

Almost 100 years old, he is the eldest monk in the Abbey; he came there as a novice, and has lived there ever since. He is angry that he has been passed over for the role of librarian, and tells William of the succession battles that happened many years before. Despite his angry and often nonsensical ravings, Alinardo gives William several key pieces of information that enable him to solve the mystery of the murders.

An ardent Franciscan and Minister General of the order of Friars Minor, Michael was a real historical figure. He is described as a jovial man who could turn sly and clever when discussing the precincts of power. He is the spiritual heir of Saint Francis, but he must balance the religious duties of such a seat with the political realities on the ground. He is skillful in dealing with various heresies, and in balancing the needs of the order with the demands of the Pope. 

Bishop of Kaffa, long reputed to be dead, who is part of Michael of Cesena’s Franciscan delegation.

One of the most determined adversaries of the Pope in his own court, he joined the Franciscan delegation on the road. 

Cardinal and leader of the Papal delegation.

Also known as Bernardo Guidoni or Bernardo Guido, he is a Dominican of about seventy, shrewd and hard to read. He is a notorious inquisitor who is known and feared by many. The novel explicitly contrasts Bernard and his world view, his brutal certainty, with William’s more compassionate, balanced and empirical methods of reasoning. Gui was a historical figure (ca. 1261-1331) who was a French inquisitor of the Dominican Order and one of the most prolific writers of the middle ages.

This young woman, between sixteen and eighteen years old, lives in the village below the monastery. She is discovered by Adso in the kitchen, and is one of the girls who sells her body for food and other favors from the abbey. She is in the kitchen one night, just before Salvatore takes her to Remigio, but Adso happens to stumble upon the intended tryst. At first, she is afraid of Adso, but he is kind to her, and when she makes sexual advances, he succumbs. Customarily, she does this for gain, but in this case, we can presume that she found him attractive. This is the one and only time that Adso has a sexual experience, and despite his remorse, he is greatly moved by her. We never really get a detailed description of her appearance, other than that she is wearing a “threadbare little dress of rough cloth that opened in a fairly immodest fashion over her bosom,” and that she wore a necklace of “little colored stones” (291). The remainder of her encounter with Adso is described through his eyes, using religious imagery that elevates the young “maiden” in grandiloquent terms, language which reflects the magnificence of the experience for him.

An illuminator in the scriptorium, Pacificus is among the Italian monks, along with Aymaro, Peter, and Rabano, who resent that a German (Malachi) holds the important post of librarian. 

Peter also works in the scriptorium and is one of ‘the Italians’ who resents “foreigners” holding the post of librarian.

An illuminator in the scriptorium.

An illuminator in the scriptorium.