Where you visit the scriptorium and know many scholars, copyists and
rubricators and an old blind man who expects the Antichrist
As we climbed I saw that my master observing the windows that gave light the scale. I was probably becoming as clever as he, because I immediately realized that they would make it difficult for anyone to reach them. On the other hand even the windows opened in the refectory (the only ones that gave on the first floor overhang) did not seem easily achievable, since below them there was no furniture of any kind.
reached the top of the stairs, to the north tower, the scriptorium, and there I could not suppress a cry of admiration. The second floor was divided in two like the one below, and therefore it appeared to my eyes in all its spacious immensity. The ceilings, curved and not too high (less than in a church, but still higher than in any other chapter house I ever saw), supported by sturdy pillars, enclosed a space suffused with beautiful light, because three huge windows opened on each side more, while five smaller window pierced each of the five outer sides of each tower, eight high, narrow windows, finally, allowed light to enter from the octagonal central well.
The abundance of windows meant that the great hall was cheered by a constant diffused light, even if it was a winter afternoon. The windows were not colored like church, and leads to meeting staring panes of clear glass because the light came in the purest way possible, not modulated by human, and to serve its purpose, which was to illuminate the work of reading and writing. I saw at other times and other places many scriptoria, but none in which shone so brightly, in the casting of natural light made the room glow, the same spiritual principle that light embodies claritas, the source of all beauty and wisdom, and inseparable attribute of that proportion the room showed. Why three things combine to create beauty: first, the integrity or perfection, and for this reason we consider bad things incomplete, then the proper proportion or consonance, and finally clarity and light, and in fact we call beautiful things of definite color . And as the vision of beauty implies peace, and our appetite is the same thing calmed peace, for good or beautiful, I was filled with a great consolation and I thought how pleasant it must be working there. As it appeared to
my eyes, at that afternoon, it seemed to me a joyous workshop of learning. I saw later in St. Gallen, a scriptorium of similar proportions, separated from the library (in other places the monks worked in the place where the books were kept), but not like this one beautifully arranged. Antiquarians, librarians, and scholars rubricators sat each at his own table, a table under each of the windows. And since the windows were forty (number really perfect due to ten times the quadragono, as if the Ten Commandments had been magnified by the four cardinal virtues) forty monks could work in unison, even if at that time were barely in their thirties. Severino explained that the monks who worked in the scriptorium were exempted from the offices of the third, sixth and ninth to avoid having to interrupt their work during daylight hours, and they stopped their activities only at sunset, for vespers.
The brightest places were reserved for the antiquarians, the most experienced, the rubricators and copyists. Each table had everything served for illuminating and copying: ink horn, fine quills which some monks were sharpening with a thin knife, pumice stone for smoothing the parchment, rulers for drawing the lines that would stretch the writing. Next to each scribe, or at the height of the inclined plane of each table stood a lectern, on which rested the code to copy, the page covered with masks which framed the line at that moment was transcribed. And some had gold ink and other colors. Others were simply reading books, and they wrote notes on their private notebooks and tablets.
I had no time, however, to observe their work, because we were met by the librarian, who already knew to be Malachi of Hildesheim. His face was trying to pose as an expression of welcome, but I could not help shuddering at the sight of such a singular appearance. His figure was tall and, though extremely thin, his limbs were large and awkward. How great strides, cloaked in the black habit of the order, there was something disturbing in his appearance. The cap, that coming outside was still raised, cast a shadow on the pallor of his face and gave a certain suffering to his large melancholy eyes. We were in his appearance as the traces of many passions that the will was disciplined but that seemed to have frozen those features that had now ceased to animate. Sadness and severity predominated in the lines of his face and his eyes were so intense that one glance could penetrate the hearts of those who spoke, and read the secret thoughts, so it was difficult to tolerate their investigation and was not tempted to meet a second time.
The librarian introduced us to many of the monks who were working at that moment. Each Malachi told us the work he was doing and all admired his deep devotion to knowledge and to study the divine word. I met so Venanzio Salvemec, from the greek and the Arabic translator, a devotee of quell'Aristotele that certainly was the wisest of all men. Benno of Uppsala, a young Scandinavian Monaco was studying rhetoric. Berengar of Arundel, the help of the librarian. Aymaro from Alexandria, who was copying works only for a few months would have been on loan to the library, and then a group of miniatures of various countries, Patrick Clonmacnois, Rabano Toledo, Magnus of Iona, Waldo from Hereford.
The list could surely go on and there is nothing more wonderful than a list, instrument of wondrous hypotyposis. But I must be the subject of our discussions, from which emerged useful information for understanding the many subtle anxiety that lingered among the monks, and a something of untapped due on all their speeches.
My teacher began speaking with Malachi, praising the beauty and hard work of the scriptorium and asking him for information on the progress of work done there because, he said very wisely, was heard everywhere in the library and would like to review many of books. Malachi said that the abbot had already said, that the Monaco asked the librarian for the work to be consulted and they then went to fetch the library above, if the request was justified and pia. William asked how he could find the name of the books kept in catchalls the above, and Malachi showed him, fixed by a gold chain at his table, covered with a voluminous code lists dense.
William slipped his hands inside his habit, where it opened on his chest to make a bag and pulled out an object that I had already seen in his hands, and face during the journey. It was a fork, so constructed that it could stay on a man's nose (or at least on his, so prominent and aquiline) as a rider is riding his horse or like a bird on a perch. And the two sides of the fork to match the eyes, the two ovals of metal, which held two kernels glass thick as the bottom of the glass. With those eyes, William, preferred to read, and said to see the best of what nature had endowed him with, or what his advanced age, especially when the declining daylight would permit. Neither he needed to see from a distance, which indeed had the piercing eye, but to see up close. With those he could read manuscripts penned in faint letters, almost too struggled to decipher. He explained to me that, when a man had passed half of life, even if his view had always been excellent, the eye becomes hardened and reluctance to adapt the pupil, so that many wise men were killed as reading and writing after their fiftieth spring. Serious disaster for men who could have given the best of their intelligence for many years. So you had to praise the Lord that someone had devised and constructed this instrument. And he told me to support the ideas of his Roger Bacon when he said that the purpose of learning was also prolong human life.
The other monks looked at William with much curiosity, but dared not ask him questions. And I noticed that even in a place so jealously and proudly dedicated to reading and writing, that wonderful instrument had not yet penetrated. I felt proud to be the result of a man who had something to impress other men famous in the world for their wisdom. With those objects on
occhi, Guglielmo si chinò sugli elenchi stilati nel codice. Guardai anch'io, e scoprimmo titoli di libri mai uditi, e altri di celeberrimi, che la biblioteca possedeva.
“De pentagono Salomonis, Ars loquendi et intelligendi in lingua hebraica, De rebus metallicis di Ruggero da Hereford, Algebra di AlKuwarizmi, resa in latino da Roberto Anglico, le Puniche di Silio Italico, i Gesta francorum, De laudibus sanctae crucis di Rabano Mauro, e Flavii Claudii Giordani de aetate mundi et hominis reservatis singulis litteris per singulos libros ab A usque ad Z,” lesse il mio maestro. “Splendide opere. Ma in che ordine sono registrate?” Citò da un testo che non conoscevo ma che era certo familiare a Malachia: ««Habeat Librarius Registrum et omnium librorum ordinatum facultates et secundum auctores, reponeatque separatim eos et cum signaturis ordered to scripturam applicatis. "How do you know the location of each book?"
Malachi showed him some annotations beside each title. I read: iii, gradus IV, V in the first Graecorum, ii, gradus V, VII in tertia anglorum, and so on. I realized that the first number indicated the position of the book on the shelf or gradus, indicated by the second number, the cabinet as indicated by the third number, and knew well that the other expressions designated a room or hall of the library, and I made bold to ask for more news about these distinctions. Malachi looked at me sternly: "Perhaps do not know, or have forgotten, that access to the Library is permitted only to the librarian. It is therefore right and sufficient that only the librarian know how to decipher these things. "
" But in what order are the books on this list, "asked William. "Not arguments, I think." He did not suggest an order by author, following the same sequence of letters of the alphabet, because it is expedient that I have seen put into operation only in recent years, and then it was used little.
"The library dates its origin in the depths of time," said Malachi, "and the books are registered in the order of acquisition, donation, their entry into our walls. "
" Hard to find, "William said.
"enough for the librarian to know them by heart and know when each book came here. As for the other monks can rely on his memory, "and seemed to be talking to another who was not himself, and realized that he was speaking of the function at that time covered unworthily, but that was covered with hundreds of others, have now disappeared, which had passed each other on their knowledge.
"I see," William said. "If I were then to seek something, not knowing what, on the pentagon of Solomon, you tell me you would know that there is a book that I just read the title and you could identify place upstairs. "
" If you really had to learn something about the pentagon of Solomon, "Malachi said. "But here is a book to give you would prefer to first seek the advice of the abbot."
"I learned that one of your best illuminators," William said then, "passed away recently. The abbot showed me a lot about his art. I could see the codes he painted? "
" Adelmo Otranto, "Malachi said looking at William mistrust," worked because of his age, only on marginalia. He had a very lively imagination and could make things known to things unknown and surprising, as those who join a human body to an equine neck. But his books are over there. No one has touched his desk. "
We approached what had been the job of Adelmo, where still lay the pages of a richly illuminated psalter. They were folios of the finest vellum - queen of the scrolls - and the last was still fixed to the table. Just rubbed with pumice stone and softened with chalk, had been smoothed with the plane, and, from the tiny holes made on the sides with a fine stylus, had been drawing all the lines that were to guide the artist's hand. The first half was already covered with writing and Monaco had begun to sketch the illustrations in the margins. Were already finished but the other sheets, and watching or I nor William could suppress a cry of admiration. It was a psalter and in which there was outlined a world turned upside down than we have used our senses. As if at a speech which by definition is the discourse of truth, he proceeded, closely linked to it, through wondrous allusions in aenigmate, a discourse on the universe lying place upside down, in which dogs flee before the hare and deer hunt the lion. Small feet heads bird, animal with human hands on the back, which sprouted from the haired heads standing, striped dragons, beasts that the neck coil was connected in a thousand knots inextricable, monkeys cervina horns, sirens in the form of volatile membranous wings on his back, armless men with other human bodies sprang back to their mo 'hump, and figures with the toothed mouth on the belly, humans and horses with the equine head with human legs, fishes and birds' wings bird with a fish tail, showing a single body and two heads or one head and body double, cow-tail rooster-winged butterfly, women from the head like the back of a scaled fish, two-headed chimera interlaced with Dragonfly-nosed lizard , centaurs, dragons, elephants, Manticore, skiapods lying on tree branches, griffins whose tail was generated by an archer in battle, demonic creatures from the neck endless sequences of anthropomorphic animals and animal motifs were associated with kidney, sometimes on the same page, where you saw scenes of rural life represented, with impressive vivacity, so that the figures would have believed that they were alive, the entire life of the fields, plows, fruit pickers, harvesters, spinners, planting next to foxes and martens armed crossbow that climbed a towered city defended by monkeys. Here an initial letter, bent into an L and the bottom generated a dragon, a large V, which began with the word "verb" produced as a natural shoot from its trunk a serpent with a thousand coils, which in turn begot other snakes such as leaves and corymbs. Next to the psalter
there was, apparently ended recently, an exquisite book of hours, the size of incredibly small, so that it would fit in the palm of your hand. Small writing, the marginal miniatures were barely visible at first sight that the eye and asked to be examined closely in order to appear in all their beauty (and you wondered how the instrument superhuman the miniaturist had drawn them to achieve such vivid effects in such a small space). The entire margins of the book were invaded by tiny figures that were generated, as a natural expansion of the letters from the terminal scrolls beautifully drawn: sea sirens, deer on the run, chimeras, human torsos without arms emerged like worms from the body of the verses. At one point, as if to continue the three "Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus" repeated on three different lines, you saw three figures beast from human heads, two of which were bent, one down and one up to join in a kiss that would not have hesitated to call immodest if I was not convinced that even if the reader, and a deep spiritual meaning was certainly justify the representation at that point.
I followed those pages torn between silent admiration and laughter, because the figures necessarily inclined hilarity, while commenting on holy pages. And Brother William examined them smiling and said: "Babewyn, so they call them in my islands."
"Babouins, as they call them in Gaul," Malachi said. "Adelmo has learned his art in your home country, although he studied in France. Baboons, monkeys, or Africa. Figure of an inverted world, where the houses stand on the tip of a steeple and the land is above the sky. "
I remembered that I had heard some verses in the vernacular of my country and I could not help pronounce:
Aller Wnder is geswigen,
herde HIMEL hat das überstigen,
daz ein Wunder Wigen sult is VUR.
And Malachi continued, citing the same text: a HIMEL
Erd ob das unter
sult ir besunder
have VUR ein Wunder aller Wunder.
"Bravo Adso," the librarian continued, "actually These images speak to us in the region where you get riding a blue goose, where there are hawks that catch fish in a stream, bears chasing falcons in the sky, flying shrimp with the doves and three giants are caught in a trap and bitten by a rooster. "
And a pale smile lit her lips. Then the other monks, who had followed the conversation with a bit shyly, laughed heartily, as if they had been awaiting the consent of the librarian. He frowned, while the others continued laughing, praising the ability of poor Adelmo and pointing out to one another the most unlikely figures. And while everyone was still laughing behind us we heard a voice, solemn and stern.
"Verba vain aut not resonate APTA Loquendo."
We turned. The speaker was a monaco bent under the weight of years, as white as snow, not only his skin, but also his face and eyes. I saw he was blind. The voice was still powerful, even majestic and members if the body was withered by age. Staring at us as if we could see, and always thereafter saw him move and speak as if he still possessed the gift of sight. But the tone of voice was that of one possessing only the gift of prophecy.
"The man venerable in age and wisdom that you see," Malachi said William, pointing to the newcomer, "is Jorge of Burgos. Older than those living in the monastery, except Alinardo Grottaferrata, he is the one to which many monks rely on the burden of their sins in the secrecy of confession. "Then, turning to the old man:" What lies before you is Brother William of Baskerville, our guest. "
" I hope that does not anger you my words, "said the old man snapped. "I heard people laughing at ridiculous things and I reminded them of a principle of our rule. And as the Psalmist says, if the monaco must refrain from speeches
good for the vow of silence, all the more reason to avoid bad speech. And as there are bad speeches are bad images. And they are those that lie about the form of creation and show the world to the opposite of what needs to be, has always been and always will forever and ever until the end of time. But you come from another order, which they say is viewed with indulgence even more inappropriate cheerfulness. "He was repeating what the Benedictines said the eccentricities of Saint Francis of Assisi, and perhaps also the bizarre attributed to all sorts of friars and Spirituals that the Franciscan order were the most recent and embarrassing shoots. But William gave not the insinuation.
"Marginal images often provoke smiles, but for purposes of edification," he said. "As in sermons, to touch the imagination of the pious crowds should be enter exempla, often facetious, so also the discourse of images must indulge in this nonsense. For every virtue and every sin is a sample taken from the bestiary, and animals exemplify the human world. "
" Oh yes, "quipped the old man, but without smiling," every image is good for inspiring virtue because the masterpiece of creation, turned with his head down, becomes the subject of laughter. And so the word of God manifests itself in the ass playing the lyre, the owl altar with the shield, oxen yoking themselves to the plow, rivers flowing upstream, the sea gets fired The wolf that you hermit! Hunting for hares with oxen, let teach you grammar owls, that dogs morsichino fleas, the blind and the dumb look dumb ask for bread, the ant give birth to a calf, chickens fly roast the buns grow on the roofs, the parrots give classes in rhetoric, the chickens fertilize cocks, put the cart before the horse, let the dog sleep in bed and all walk upside down! What will all this nonsense? A world inverse and opposite of that established by God, under the pretext of teaching the precepts of God! "
" But the Areopagite teaches, "William said humbly," God can only be appointed through things more uniform. And Hugh of St. Victor reminded us that the more the simile becomes dissimilar, the more the truth is revealed to us under the guise of horrible and indecorous figures, let alone the imagination is sated in carnal enjoyment, and is obliged to perceive the mysteries hidden under the turpitude of the images ... "
" I know the argument! And I confess with shame that was the main topic of our order, when the abbots of Cluny were fighting against the Cistercians. But St. Bernard was right: little by little the man who represents monsters and wonders of nature to reveal the things of God per speculum et in aenigmate takes taste to the very nature of the monstrosity that creates and delight of those, and those , no longer see through them. Just look at it you who still view the capitals of your cloister, "and he motioned with his hand out of the windows, to church," under the eyes of brothers intent on meditation, what they mean those ridiculous monstrosities, those deformed shapely and buxom discrepancy? Those filthy apes? Those lions, those centaurs, those half-human creatures, with his mouth on his stomach, one leg, ears like sails? Those spotted tigers, those fighting warriors, those hunters blowing their horns, and those many bodies in one head and many heads in one body? Quadruped with the tail of a snake, and fish with the head of a quadruped, and here in front of an animal that looks like a horse and a goat behind, and there a horse with horns and so on, is now more pleasant to read monaco marble than the manuscripts, and admire the works of man rather than meditate on the law of God Shame on the desire of your eyes and your smiles! "
The old man stopped, panting. And I admired the vivid memory with which, perhaps blind for many years, still recall the images of which we spoke turpitude. So much so that they suspected that they had attracted a lot when he had seen, he could yet describe it with passion. But I often happened to find the most seductive depictions of sin in the pages of those men of incorruptible virtue who condemned their spell and their effects. A sign that these Men are moved by such eagerness to witness the truth that they do not hesitate, for God's sake, to give all the seductions of the evil that is cloaked, to render men better acquainted with the ways in which the wicked enchants them. In fact the words of Jorge me with a great desire to see the tigers and monkeys of the cloister, which I had not admired. But Jorge interrupted the flow of my thoughts they were taken, with less excited tone, to speak.
"Our Lord did not need such foolish things to show us the right path. Nothing in his parables arouses laughter, or fear. Adelmo however, that weep now dead, so he enjoyed the monsters he painted, he had lost sight of the ultimate things which had to be illustrate. And he followed all, all I say, "and his voice grew solemn and ominous," the paths of monstrosity. Which God knows how to punish. "
A heavy silence fell over those present. Dared to break Venantius Salvemec.
"Venerable Jorge," he said, "your virtue makes you unjust. Adelmo died two days before you were present at a scholarly debate that took place right here in the scriptorium. Adelmo was concerned that his art, indulging in bizarre and fantastic, was nevertheless to the glory of God, an instrument of knowledge of heavenly things. Brother William mentioned just now the Areopagite, the knowledge for non-compliance. It cited that Adelmo day, another high authority, the doctor of Aquino, when he said that things should be exposed more divine figure of vile bodies in the guise of noble bodies. First because it is more easily freed the human mind from error, it is clear that certain properties can not be attributed to divine things, that it is doubtful if they were portrayed by noble corporeal things. Second, because this depiction is more suited to the knowledge of God that we have on this earth: He shows Himself more in that which is not that what it is, and therefore the similarities of those things furthest from God lead us to a more accurate opinion of him, so we know that because he is above what we say and think. And thirdly because it is better hidden things unworthy of God to the people. In short, it was that day to figure out how you can discover the truth through surprising expressions and witty and enigmatic. And I reminded him that in the great Aristotle had found very clear words on this matter ... "
" I do not remember, "Jorge interrupted sharply," are very old. I do not remember. I have been excessively severe. Now it's late, I must go. "
" It 's strange that you do not remember, "he insisted Venanzio," was a learned and beautiful discussion, which also intervened Benno and Berengar. The question, for if the metaphors, and puns, and riddles, which also seem conceived by poets for sheer pleasure, do not lead us to speculate about things in new and surprising, and I said that this is a virtue is required to test ... And there was Malachi ... "
" If the venerable Jorge not remember, respect for his age and the weariness of his mind ... otherwise always so alive, "one of the monks who followed the debate. The phrase was uttered in an agitated, at least initially, because those who spoke, realizing that in urging respect for the old, in fact it put a weakness, had slowed the pace of his speech, ending almost in a whisper of apology. A talk was Berengar of Arundel, the assistant librarian. He was a young man with pale face, and watching him I remembered that the definition had Ubertino of Adelmo, his eyes seemed those of a lascivious woman. Intimidated by the looks of all that now rested upon him, he kept his fingers clasped as those who want to suppress an internal tension.
Venantius's reaction was unusual. He looked Berengar so that made him lower his eyes, "Okay brother," he said, "if memory is a gift of God that the ability to forget can be very good, and must be respected. But I respect her elderly brother to whom I spoke. From you I expected a sharper recollection of things that happened when we were here with a dear friend of yours ... "I could not say whether
Venanzio had trod the tone on the word" dear. " The fact is that I sensed an embarrassment among those present. Each looked to a different part and no one at Berengar, who had blushed violently. Malachi promptly spoke with authority: "Come, Brother William," he said, "I'll show you other interesting books."
The group broke up. I saw Berengar Venantius a look of resentment, and Venantius return, with changes challenge. I saw that old Jorge was driving away, moved by a sense of respectful awe, and bowed to kiss his hand. The old man received a kiss, put her hand on my head, and asked who I was. When I told him my name, his face brightened.
"You bear a great name and beautiful," he said. "You know who was Adso of Montier-en-Der?" He asked. I confess, I did not. So Jorge said: "He was the author of a book is great and terrible, the Libellus de Antichristo, where he saw things that were to happen, and was not heard enough."
"The book was written before the millennium," said William , "and those things have not come true ..."
"For those who have eyes to see," said the blind. "The ways of the Antichrist are slow and tortuous. He comes when we do not expect him, not because the method suggested by the apostle was mistaken, but because we have not learned the art. "Then he shouted, loudly, his face toward the room, making the boom times of the scriptorium: "He is coming! Do not waste your last days laughing at monsters with mottled skin and twisted tails! Do not squander the last seven days! "
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