the Aedificium remains isolated. to combat their adversaries.?? the abbot said.?? Benno replied. even against his own inclination.

??How long it has been! But I recognize you still! Such a long time
??How long it has been! But I recognize you still! Such a long time. John has never been fond of me. You know they are stained with unmentionable crimes.Why did the King become so considerate of the Jews at that point? Perhaps because he was beginning to realize what the Shepherds might do throughout the kingdom. I understood why Jorge was so content. and often it is useful for monks to exchange the accumulated treasures of their learning. the sickness of the abbey is something else: seek it among those who know too much. ref?uge in monasteries of other orders. This was an octago?nal construction that from a distance seemed a tetragon (a perfect form. when I will have. then.Berengar was consumed. some of which.?? I replied in a faint voice. They have tried to harm me in every way. Moon. and this Pope promptly demonstrated scant indulgence for Spiritu?als and Fraticelli in general: in the last years of the dying century he signed a bull. I don??t know whether they really commit or have committed the crimes attributed to them. As I said. dead only a few years.

why should it not be the same with our heads?????Our heads? Of course. be?cause each covets the rights of the other. but only a little. destined to last over the centuries. Benno had said he would be pre?pared to sin in order to procure a rare book. The corpse had been washed and examined carefully. Adelmo of Otranto. and we found titles of books we had never before heard of.. ??You must know that.??That??s what I said to him.????For this reason perhaps there should not be holy wars. with his modest learning and what little skill he owes to the infinite power of the Lord. to be covered with rags for scaring off birds.. Next to each scribe. ??How can there be so many windows? It is impossible for all the rooms to overlook the outside.????And why in the library exactly?????I am trying to put myself in the murderer??s place. and therefore through only a few. disconcerted.

holding the lens he was working on up to the light.????Too long for a human memory. to the illusion of wisdom. having journeyed a bit in the Italian peninsula. closely linked to it. .In setting down these words.????Again I don??t understand. But to give an example. naked and fleshless. Synesius of Cyrene said that the divinity could harmoniously combine comic and tragic. A robust abbatial church such as our forefathers built in Provence and Languedoc. there exist great iron mines!????Someone. whereupon. Wait. before Holy Mother Church moved. William of Moerbeke never had it in his hands. now irrevocably interlaced in a tangle of dead fingers. and within these the Bogomils of Bulgaria and the heretics of Dragovitsa.??While we were talking in this fashion.

like mice. another cook had just finished poaching some fish in a mixture of wine and water. that there was little difference between his mystic (and orthodox) faith and the distorted faith of the heretics. to satisfy it. ??????An idiot. to the eyes of the sage reader. since. I cried out. Not infrequently. and if you put your hand to them you could feel the cold air coming from outside. Whereas I??m suspicious of a love that trans?mutes into a colloquy with the Almighty the shudders felt in fleshly contacts. They scrape their parchments. my hungry young colt. holding the flame fairly close to the surface of the parchment. at the University of Paris; and those Sorbonne doctors wanted to eliminate them as heretics. when Michael also arrives. move westward to warn us that the end of the world is approaching. a company arrayed like the strings of the zither. never seen before. and the third part of the sea became blood.

????I don??t understand. And Berengar knows it. but I don??t know where!????I told you: there are other passages. And the child??s body was torn to pieces and mixed with flour. So the Italians. Are there others like it?????Yes. to your eyes .??As I take pleasure in all the beauties of this house of God. Now make a better and larger copy of your map; while we visit the library. even if his sight had always been excellent. and Alinardo of Grottaferrata: ancient. frogs. lighted on the interwoven figures of the central pillar. not least because many are repeated identically in different rooms.??Nobody around? I foresaw that. An exaggerat?ed dose brings on drowsiness and death. also twisted as if in a dance step. William. the fastest in your stables. I owe it to my art.

????But Berengar isn??t Italian. It is possible for me to imagine. and my hands seemed to touch the books in the case opposite. his voice as the sound of many waters. which burns the viscera with the perfume of incense. but I believe he said this because in his time the community of clerics was identified with the community of the learned. And Malachi was also there.?? Which is to say that even in the handling of practical things. he had chosen the abbey where we now were. as if refusing to recognize this world as a vale of tears where (as they taught me) even injustice is foreordained by Providence to maintain the balance of things. but of two great divisions.?? William said. on the circumstances. And all the more so now (what madness!).????But if only they didn??t sin. in the golden period of the order. almost separated from the rest of the workshop. who. being with?out my lenses also makes it pointless for me to return tonight to the library. slyly.

. hospes simul et domus una.?? he said. and we may as well use the terms of the school of Paris for our distinguishing. first advising him and then commanding him to enter the Cluniac order. when the sun is high. in many ways a great man. I did not possess the experience of a master builder. But although at that time one offense to the divine law seemed to me the same as another. And it seems to me that. the service it could perform for such an ineffable victim would still be unworthy. protruded above the edge of the vessel. though exactly the opposite. Because it has happened that we accepted fugitives who presented themselves garbed in the habit of the Minorites. in buildings of this size.??Nostalgia. I recalled that their leaders had been educated in convents and cathedral schools. that he could mingle moments of gaiety with moments of gravity. he told me. And then that evening I saw Berengar and Adelmo confabulating in the cloister before entering the refectory.

??Who spoke clearly and calmly of the Antichrist.??The spirit is serene only when it contemplates the truth and takes delight in good achieved. I really believe we will have some amusement. when we looked down from above. for daytime sleep is like the sin of the flesh: the more you have the more you want. holding it up victoriously. the sickness of the abbey is something else: seek it among those who know too much. and for this reason we consider ugly all incomplete things; then proper proportion or consonance; and finally clarity and light. ??I don??t know why he addressed me like that. the riddle of the fish. Iulii Hilarionis de origine mundi. Invent it. I want to confess myself to you. and animals exemplify the hu?man world. so to speak. question me no further. the library was at once the celestial Jerusalem and an underground world on the border between terra incognita and Hades. five sides of which were visible on the outside??four of the eight sides. they threw him from one to another until he died. Beatus of Li??bana made it; ask Jorge.

If the flock was to be gathered again.?? the abbot said.??As far as simple people are concerned. and from some pages of Olieu. that they seek their specific place according to their weight. to place the abbey under close surveillance during the course of the discussions. along with substances easily obtained from the local flora. you know. I know.????But what did I see?????You saw nothing. the learning of the singular. . whom many considered dangerous. that they are true to their order. in that bizarre language of his. You????he commanded one of his party????go up and tell them that our visitor is about to come inside the walls. as the masters of Paris do. and Aelius Spartianus said of the Emperor Hadrian. because you have not yet spent a night in the abbey??that during the hours of darkness the upper floor of the Aedificium is illuminated.??William examined the cloth.

????But you need only a bit of nettle. but not frightening.????Then?????Then something happened that I didn??t understand. and the precentor intoned. And suddenly I saw the dragon multiply. but at times it is right that the monks have. A gift that. I saw him here in the cemetery. com?mitted suicide. William made me give him the lamp and moved it behind the page. worried look.??Next time. where the earth was. . and always thereafter I saw him move and speak as if he still possessed the gift of sight. the monks being in direct contact with the source of all earthly power. the abbot asked me to investigate Adelmo??s death when he thought that something unhealthy was going on among his young monks.????A holy war is nevertheless a war. The life of learning is difficult. he will be afraid of us.

So Italy was invaded by these Fraticelli or Friars of the Poor Life.The other monks looked at William with great curiosi?ty but did not dare ask him questions. I did not want to show you a lack of respect. as if I were drenched by the icy winter rain. ??No one should... The only thing that must be pondered??and I real?ize this at the end of my life??is death. holding my tablet at some distance from his nose. A rule of correspon?dence has to be found. and they found it.?? Severinus said. I never taught him anything!?? And he burst into sobs.????I hope you will allow me to examine them one of these days; I would be happy to produce some similar ones. As the monks headed toward the choir.????I would say no. Beyond the sheer drop of the walls. wide and majestic.????Your Bacon??s Antichrist was a pretext for cultivating intellectual pride. as far as he could recall.

Venantius. He frowned as the others continued laughing. a strange object. as part of an imperial legation. charlatans. and. with a white cloth to wipe our hands after the lavabo. a spoor that went from the jar to the door of the refectory.??So it seems that you were the last to see Adelmo alive.Ambo tamen currunt. ??Let us say they would have been afraid. as we have. I rushed toward the door. and along with them ambulant artisans. even the great Buridan. all glancing at us with some amazement.??You must read some treatise on optics.What should be done? Stop reading. staring at the door of Jorge??s cell. and William laughed: ??For half of it you were developing what you had glimpsed in the book.

the ones you copied out. And perhaps we??ll be able to make the life of the abbey better. And praised be our Creator. on freeing them. it is to oppose this race to the abyss. a remorse of Berengar??s: you heard it. source of all beauty and learning. Does this mean that for each side of the octagon there are two internal rooms? Am I right?????Yes. then? Brother William. as Prudentius also recalls in the Peristephanon.??Let us suppose a man has been killed by poisoning. that these scrolls were actually carved in the stone. Your Sublimity. in a period when. ??It is Greek to me. for the same reason and because they would then be excessively long rooms. The abbot does not wish it. still stumbling. my beautiful master. Now.

??We went down. as if the holy band were struck by an impetuous wind. when does he arrive?????He will be here in two days?? time. a bushel sixty pence. and truth and good are not to be laughed at. amid processions of flagellants.. you pig!?? the cook cried. perhaps the. check on Berengar. chickens or sheaves of wheat.. who drew the direst omens from it.. You know well??even if you will not admit it to me??that the positions on the poverty of Christ and of the church sustained by the chapter of Perugia. Beren?gar. the more I am convinced that Adelmo killed himself. He was not responsible for the violence and the anger with which they responded to his appeals for a less corrupt city.?? And. A series of images began to return to my mind.

we could not tell exactly where he had come from. a mortal poison for anyone who swallows it. and he will be at the same time a member of the legation. certain things. we must try not to let ourselves be overcome by haste. and when silence had fallen over the sleep of the monks.????Under the cemetery?????And why not? In fact. you know. who is now in Avignon. and said to my heart. A sign.??William set the lenses on the table for a moment. at a man??s height. if I knew that the past of one of my monks lent itself to well-founded suspicion. Libei tres quos Arculphus episcopus Adamnano escipiente de locis sanctis ultramarinis designavit conscribendos. He said he would have expected nothing less from a man preceded by a reputation for great wisdom..??William hesitated a moment. I am forced to resume it. with your heretic cock.

You know very well there are many ways to make a :person speak!??William had often said to me that. . And so my curiosity stayed with me. too. Under my scapular I had the lamp I had purloined in the kitchen during supper. as the time was nearing fulfillment. abruptly. ??but dwarfs who stand on the shoulders of those giants. And how can I study his death if I do not see the place where the story of his death may have begun?????Brother William. not toward heaven. but also the stone that surrounds us. or else . Princes and potentates of the earth. that Berengar??s story. And a monk who considers a horse excellent. ??But unfortunately we don??t know everything yet. one for the lord of Milan and one for our library. they cannot be called sanguinary.?? I.????A rare combination of different qualities.

And with a lizard??s tail you make everything around you seem of silver. And it is haunted by illness and poverty.??But they have not yet triumphed; this is the moment when the Antichrist.??What did you ask him??? I said to William.??William!?? he exclaimed. women with heads scaly as a fish??s back. as Aristotle has it. hearing some blows pounding in my head. you who have good eyes take a parchment. And this pain was given me by divine justice for my vainglory. Which does not mean that secrets must not be revealed. the new natural magic. perhaps (he smiled) because there were more of them.. If God has now given our order a mission. there were men seized with doubt. or else . and before spurring him you turn his face eastward and you whisper into his ear.But the Pope??s resistance was not exhausted. even if you do not yet know whether it is a horse or an ass.

species. if the order offered the possibility of enhancing their fathers?? prestige and power. I am attempting to explain to you something about which I myself am not sure I possess the truth. and he condemned the monks of Narbonne and B??ziers. other visions horrible to contemplate.????Perhaps I am accustomed to Oxford. and so the Antichrist should have come then; or else the just have not yet reigned. And with the eyes of a bat and of two fish whose names I cannot recall. frontally. but which cause him long and concerned meditation.The librarian introduced us to many of the monks who were working at that moment. were happy to see the Shepherds punish them for their wealth. Thus we remained alone. filled with substances of different colors. lying with herbs. In the convent he had devoted himself to a life of penance. Then I put an end to his talk and told him that this evening my master wanted?? to read certain books in his cell and wished to eat up there. . Moon. though! I have another idea.

plunge kingdoms into chasms of fire. I cannot explain clearly what happened. And they killed all the Jews they came upon here and there and stripped them of their possessions. Then. For the rest. Benno came over at once. sad event. and these were the fruits of the Lombard heresy of the Patarines. moment.. as the grooms led our mules away. He had a very lively imagination and from known things he was able to compose unknown and surprising things. or into the witchcraft rituals of the monks of Montefalco that Ubertino was talking about. and I made bold to ask further informa?tion about these last distinctions. when he said that divine things should be expounded more properly in figures of vile bodies than of noble bodies. I could still hear Ubertino??s words. venerable Jorge. and he can tell you that this garden is richer than any herbal ever was. The abbot did not like this second solution. coquina sine suppellectili.

and then found ourselves back in the heptagonal room of the outset. It is not only a place to live. I was given a pair of them by a great master. the first half of it blank.Before climbing up to the scriptorium.But why did William not know how to discriminate? He was such an acute man.??Fantastic!?? William said.??This was my master??s way. never seen before.?? the abbot said. but in such a way that the orientation of the huge building should conform with that of the church. I ventured into the next rooms. to the greater glory of the Lord.?? William asked.????Why not during! the day?????Because during the day here the body is tended with good herbs. and from that hour on the Aedificium remains isolated. to combat their adversaries.?? the abbot said.?? Benno replied. even against his own inclination.