The Name of the Rose: Sixth Day Summary & Analysis

At morning prayers, the monks chant the “Sederunt,” which gives Adso comfort. But then Malachi collapses in church and dies, saying “He told me…truly…It had the power of a thousand scorpions.” William sees that the fingers of his hands are also blackened. Jorge weeps and says “it will never end.” Nicholas is appointed cellarer to replace Remigio, but the post of librarian remains vacant. Benno is told to ensure that the scriptorium continues to function. Alinardo, Aymaro, and a group of other Italian monks appear pleased that “the German” librarian is dead. They say that the new librarian should know Greek and Arabic. William observes to Adso that everyone who has died with blackened fingers—Venantius, Berengar, and Malachi—knew Greek, so the next victim will probably know it as well. He suggests that they warn the abbot, who is one of the few remaining people who knows the secret of the finis Africae.

In his new position as cellarer, Nicholas invites William and Adso to the abbey’s crypt, where he tells them some secrets of the abbey’s history. The abbey is vastly wealthy, as Adso realizes from the precious gold, silver, and jewels stored in the crypt. By tradition, Nicholas explains, the librarian eventually becomes abbot. This was why some of the Italian monks—like Aymaro and Alinardo—grumbled against the appointment of foreigners to the role. It is possible that Malachi and Berengar were killed, he suggests, because someone didn’t want them to become abbot. Nicholas then shows them the rest of the treasures of the crypt, including relics of saints—for example, a splinter of the cross on which Christ was crucified.  William observes wryly that the relics are probably not authentic, but the gold and jewels are. “This crypt is a beautiful epitome of the debates on poverty,” he tells Adso. The abbey’s vast wealth explains why the monks “make mincemeat of one another” as they aspire to the position of abbot.

Listening to the “Dies irae,” Adso has a vision. He sees Abo, Jorge, Bernard, other monks, and various Biblical figures arrayed for a feast. But the feast soon descends into drunkenness and violence, and people begin to attack the girl from the village, torturing her and turning her flesh into a “deaf and blind ruin.” Ubertino tells Adso that this is the price of sin. Suddenly, Salvatore enters, and Adso imagines that he is inside a great flame, but is no longer afraid, for “now I knew all about the mortal human body, its sufferings and its corruption.” The figures return to the feast, restored to normality, and Adso sees the girl, “whole and most beautiful,” who tells him that they will meet again in heaven. The Pseudo Apostles come in and crown the Emperor with the approval of the people. Pope John appears, shouting in confusion, but everyone ignores him and goes outside to hunt truffles in the forest.

Adso is about to follow them, but then sees William emerging from the labyrinth, holding a compass and heading northwards. Adso shouts after him, saying he wants to see what is in the finis Africae as well, but William tells him “You have already seen it!”

Adso wakes and leaves the chapel, finding William saying goodbye to the Franciscans. He hears that the prisoners (Salvatore, Remigio, and the girl) have already left. He decides that it’s better this way, since he wasn’t sure he could bear the sight of the condemned. He tells William about his distressing dream. William points out that he has dreamed of the Coena Cypriani (the “Feast of Cyprian”). The work is considered irreverent and sacrilegious, but some of the monks read it anyway. William suggests that this dream might provide useful insights and that it can be read “like an allegory, or an analogy.”

Adso’s dream reminds William to check the library catalogue. Back in the scriptorium, he sees a catalogue entry for a mysterious book labeled “finis Africae” containing four titles bound together, including a copy of the Coena. William then makes some calculations. Robert of Bobbio was librarian by the year 1290, and after he died, Malachi succeeded him. Before Robert, there was another librarian, Paul of Rimini—he was appointed about sixty years ago, or around 1270. Alinardo complained that, about fifty years ago (around 1280), he should have been made librarian instead of someone else. Was he referring to Paul, or Robert? There are three sets of handwriting in the catalogue: Malachi, and before him Robert (whose hand is shaky, because he was ill), and then another hand, “straight and confident.” This cannot be Paul, who had “a strange defect…which made him unable to write.” If William’s hypothesis is true, “between Paul and Robert we would have another librarian, chosen about fifty years ago, who was the mysterious rival of Alinardo, who was hoping, as an older man, to succeed Paul”—but, mysteriously Robert was appointed instead. William is not sure that he can draw any conclusions from this. He now has “only some premises.”

William asks Benno whether anyone mentioned the Coena in the discussion about riddles. Benno confirms that Venantius did, and Jorge became furious, reminding everyone that the book had been forbidden by the abbot. Benno asks to speak with them in private. He confesses that he is afraid that since someone killed Malachi, he might be next, especially since the Italians don’t want another foreign librarian. Apparently the Italians “often spoke of Malachi as a straw man…put here by someone else.” William asks Benno whether he read the book before he returned it to Malachi, and Benno says that he did not; he confirms that the book begins with an Arabic text, followed by texts in Syriac, Latin, and Greek. This book, then, is indeed the forbidden book they saw in the infirmary and identified in the catalogue. Benno describes the pages of the Greek text as “damp” and “strange,” and William realizes that it is written on linen paper.

William asks to speak with the abbot in his apartments. Abo reflects on the beauty of the abbey’s Aedificium and its perfect symbolic proportions, having three stories, which is the number of the Trinity, of the days Jesus and Lazarus passed in the sepulcher, and of the times Christ appeared to his disciples after the Resurrection. William politely asks him to get to the point.

Abo tells William that he is disappointed with his inability to solve the mystery.  William admits that he has not lived up to expectations, but tells the abbot that he now believes these crimes stem not from a vendetta among the monks, but “from deeds that, in their turn, originate in the remote history of the abbey.” The key wasn’t Remigio’s heretical past, or the illicit relations between Berengar and Adelmo. Rather, everything turns on the theft of a book from the finis Africae. Abo demands to know whether William has contravened his orders and entered the finis Africae, but William lies and says he knows this only through his powers of deduction. He presents Abo with his hypothesis that the crimes have been committed by someone who hopes to prevent people from discovering a secret in the library. All the people who might have known it are dead, except the abbot.

Abo is offended at the insinuation that he might be the murderer. He begins telling Adso about his ring, explaining that it is a symbol of his authority as abbot. Gems have a language of their own, he says. Each expresses “several truths, according to the sense of the selected interpretation.” Only authority can determine the truth among competing interpretations, for how else can people “interpret the multiple signs the world sets before our sinner’s eyes?”

William interrupts and demands to know why Abo has changed the subject instead of naming the murderer and explaining the nature of the forbidden book. Abo tells William that he doesn’t expect a Franciscan to understand the sacred ways of the Benedictine order. From now on, he says, he will investigate the murders himself, under his own authority as abbot. He thanks William for his work and asks him to leave the abbey the next morning.

After leaving the abbot’s apartments, Adso suggests that Abo might either have already known everything, or he might not have not known until now, and wants William out of the way while he resolves the matter himself. Either way, his concern is with the reputation of the abbey. William is enraged, complaining that the Benedictine order are “worse than princes, more baronial than barons,” happy to hand over a poor peasant to the authorities but scrupulous to protect their own. Adso is hurt by William’s harsh words against his order and its abbots. They agree that they must leave the next morning, as Abo demanded, but William is determined to uncover the secret that night. Adso asks why he has to know, and William responds that “we must [know]…even if we comprehend imperfectly.”

Adso suggests a third hypothesis: perhaps Abo wants to solve the murder on his own in order to prevent the faction of Italian monks from revolting against “foreign” librarians. William determines that they must enter the finis Africae, since “the final answer must be there,” and in doing so save someone’s life. Meanwhile, there is a commotion outside the Aedificium. The Italian monks are clustered together, whispering, and Jorge heads toward the chapter house with Nicholas. Benno tells them that the scriptorium is in chaos and no one is working. William suggests that with Malachi and Berengar dead, everyone is looking for a scapegoat. He goes to lie down for a few hours, which Adso finds perplexing, but observes that William thinks best when he’s had more rest.

That night, Jorge is absent from vespers. Benno is also absent (he is closing the scriptorium), along with Nicholas (who is making dinner) and Alinardo (who is not well). When these facts are pointed out to Abo, he becomes visibly irritated. One of the Italian monks mutinously mutters that Abo behaves like “the whore of Avignon.” Several hours later, Jorge is still missing. William asks Nicholas where Jorge had gone earlier that day, and Nicholas says he accompanied him to a long meeting with the abbot. At compline, Abo asks the monks to pray for Jorge’s health, and orders that no one should walk outside the dormitory that night. After everyone has gone to bed, William and Adso observe Abo entering the Aedificium alone. 

After an hour, Abo still hasn’t returned, so he hadn’t gone inside simply to close the Aedificium: Adso suggests that he’s gone into the finis Africae. William agrees that this may be the case, but they still don’t know how to get in. They visit the stables, where Adso idly remarks on a comment that Salvatore had made about a horse, calling it “tertius equi”—in his bad Latin, he said “the third of the horse” instead of “the third horse.” Upon hearing this, William has a sudden revelation and tells Adso that they must run to the library. “Primum et septium de quatuor” does not mean the first and seventh of four, but of the four, the word four. They now understand Venantius’s riddle and the secret of entering the finis Africae: one must press the fourth and seventh letters of the word “quatuor,” or “four.”

In the kitchen, William and Adso hear a muffled noise. William surmises that Abo tried to enter the finis Africae through a secret passageway and has been trapped inside. William tells Adso that they must hurry in order to save the life of “someone who does not deserve it.” William and Adso go upstairs to the scriptorium, then the library, and finally, the mirror room in the south tower. Adso sets down a lamp on the floor and the flame begins to lick the binding of a book, prompting William to tell Adso to pick the lamp up, asking “you want to set fire to the library?” They open the door to the finis Africae by pressing the “q” and “r” in the word “quatuor,” as Venantius wrote in his notes. The frame of the mirror shudders and the glass surface snaps back, revealing that the mirror is in fact a door. Around midnight, William and Adso enter the finis Africae.