In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God This was in the beginning with God and faithful to the task of Monaco would repeat every day with chanting humility the one weather event is unchanging to assert the incontrovertible truth. But videmus nunc per speculum et in aenigmate and truth, first face to face, appears at times (alas, how illegible) error in the world, so we have to spell out the faithful segnacoli, even where there seem obscure and almost entirely woven of a will to evil aims.
coupling the end of my life as a sinner, and haired senesco as the world, waiting to lose the bottomless abyss of the divinity silent and deserted, participating in the light of angelic intelligences inconversevole, held now with my body heavy and sick this cell in the dear monastery of Melk, I am going to leave this level of testimony wondrous and terrible events that happened to me in my youth to attend, repeating verbatim what I saw and heard, without venture to draw a design, as to leave to those who will (if not the Antichrist will precede them) signs of signs, and why are they engaging in prayer of deciphering.
The Lord grant me the grace to be transparent witness of the events that took place in the abbey is good and pious is silent now also the name of the Lord to the end of the year 1327 when the Emperor Louis fell for in Italy restore the dignity of the Holy Roman Empire, according to the plan of the confusion and the infamous, and usurper simoniac heresiarch shame that he went to Avignon in the holy name of the apostle (I say the sinful soul of James of Cahors, honored as the wicked John XXII).
Perhaps to better understand the events in which I was involved, it is good that I can remember what was happening in that part of this century, as I understood it then, living it, and as the remembrance now enriched with other stories I heard later - if well my memory will be able to renew the ranks of so many events and confusissimi.
Since the early years of that century, Pope Clement V had moved the Apostolic See to Avignon, leaving Rome a prey to the ambitions of local lords: and gradually the holy city of Christianity had been transformed into a circus, or in a brothel, torn by struggles among its largest, it was said republic, and it was not, beaten by armed gangs, subjected to violence and looting. Escaping from ecclesiastical to secular jurisdiction mobs ruled and robbed by the sword in hand, and organized preempted abhorrent trade. How to prevent the Caput Mundi become, and rightly so, the destination for those who want to wear the crown of the Holy Roman Empire and restore the dignity of that temporal power which had already been the Caesars?
Here, then, that in 1314 five German princes were elected in Frankfurt Ludwig of Bavaria as the supreme ruler of the empire. But the same day, on the opposite bank of the Main, the Count Palatine of the Rhine and the Archbishop of Cologne had been elected to the same dignity as Frederick of Austria. Two emperors for a single seat and a single pope for two: a situation that became, indeed, of great disorder fomes ...
Two years later he was elected the new pope in Avignon, James of Cahors, aged seventy-two, just the name of John XXII, and heaven forbid that any pope ever to take a name now so unpopular with the good. French and devoted to the king of France (the men of that land is always prone to corrupt further the interests of their own, and are unable to watch the whole world as their spiritual home), he had argued against Philip the Fair, the Knights Templar, that the king had accused (I believe unjustly) of crimes vergognosissimi to seize their assets, thanks quell'ecclesiastico denied. Meanwhile, it was included in all that plot of Roberto Naples, which to maintain control of the Italian peninsula had convinced the pope did not recognize either of the two German emperors, and so had been captain-general of the state of the church.
In 1322 Ludovico il Bavaro beat his rival Frederick. Even more fearful of one emperor, as it had been two, John excommunicated the winner, and these back denounced the pope as a heretic. Needless to say, in that year, took place in Perugia chapter of the Franciscan friars, and their
General, Michael of Cesena, rectify the "spiritual" (which I will have occasion to speak) was proclaimed as truths of faith Christ's poverty, that if something had owned with his apostles had just as facto usus. Worthy resolution, which seeks to protect the virtue and purity of the order, but it very displeased the Pope, maybe you glimpsed a principle that would have jeopardized the same claims that he, as head of the church, had to challenge all ' Empire the right to elect bishops, claiming conversely to the holy throne of the emperor to invest. Were these or other reasons that moved him, John the propositions condemned in 1323 the Franciscans and the decretal Cum inter nonnullos.
was at that point, I suppose, that Louis saw the Franciscans, the Pope become enemies, powerful allies. Affirming the poverty of Christ they somehow reinvigorate the ideas of the imperial theologians, and that of Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun. And finally, not many months before the events of which I am narrating, Louis, who had reached an agreement with the defeated Frederick, descended into Italy, was crowned in Milan, came into conflict with the Visconti, who also welcomed him, placed Pisa under siege, appointed imperial vicar Castruccio, duke of Lucca and Pistoia (and I never knew why it hurt the most cruel man, except perhaps Uguccione Faggiola), and now gets ready to go to Rome, summoned by the lord place Sciarra Colonna .
's what it was like when I - already a novice in the Benedictine monastery of Melk - I was removed from the tranquility of the cloister of my father, who fought in the wake of Louis, not least among his barons, and that wise ritenette take me with him because I knew the wonders of Italy and were present when the emperor had been crowned in Rome. But the siege of Pisa absorbed in the military health care. I took advantage of them wandering around, a little lazy and a little desire to learn, for the cities of Tuscany, but this life free and without rules did not suit, they thought my parents, a teenager devoted to the contemplative life. And the advice of Marsilio, who had taken a liking, they decided to place me beside a learned Franciscan friar William of Baskerville, who was about to begin a mission that would take him to touch famous cities and ancient abbeys. So I became his scribe and disciple at the same time, neither had to repent, because I was with him as a witness of events worthy of being delivered, as I am now doing, to the memory of those who will come.
I did not know then what Brother William tried, and they really do not know today, and I assume he did not know either, it was moved by the sole desire of truth, and the suspect - who always saw the feed - that the truth was not what appeared to him in the present moment. And maybe in those years he was distracted from his studies favored by tasks of the century. The mission of which William was in charge I was unknown throughout the trip, which he told me about it. Rather, it was listening to songs of conversations he had with the abbots of monasteries where we stopped gradually, I did have some ideas about the nature of his task. But I did not understand fully until you arrive at our destination, as I will say. We were headed north, but our trip did not proceed in a straight line and we stopped in several abbeys. It so happened that bend to the west while our ultimate goal was to the east, almost following the line from Pisa mountain that leads towards the Way of St James, dwelling in a land that the terrible events that took place then I do not recommend you to better identify, but whose rulers were loyal to the empire and where the abbots of our order jointly opposed the corrupt and heretical pope. The trip lasted two weeks between the various stories and in that time I got to know (not enough, as always I am convinced) my new master.
In the pages that follow I will not indulge in descriptions of people - except when the expression of a face or a gesture, will not appear as signs of a mute but eloquent language - because, as Boethius says, nothing is more fleeting form exterior, which withers and the flowers changes as the appearance of autumn, and what would now say that the abbot Abo had severe eye and cheeks pale, when by now he and those around him are dust and of dust their bodies now the gray lethal (only the soul, God wants it, shining a light that never fade more)? But William would say, once and for all, because he impressed me even the unique features, and it is binding to a young man older and wiser, not only for the charm of the word and the sharpness of mind, but even though the shape of the body surface, resulting dearest, as with the figure of a father, of which we study the gestures, and anger, and he watches for the smile - without the shadow of lust pollute this way ( perhaps the only pure) of physical love.
's men were once beautiful and great (now they are children and dwarf), but this is just one of many who witnessed the misfortune of a graying world. The youth does not want to learn anything, science is in decline, the whole world walks on the head, the blind leading the blind and they're falling into the abyss, the birds throw themselves before taking the flight, the ass playing the lyre , the horse dance, Mary no longer loves the contemplative life and Martha no longer loves the active life, Lea is sterile, Rachel has the carnal eye, he attended the brothels Cato, Lucretius becomes female. Everything is diverted from its path. Thanks be to God that I at that time I gained from my desire to learn and master the meaning of the right way, which is also preserved when the path is tortuous.
was therefore of Brother William's physical appearance to attract the attention of the most distracted. His stature exceeded that of a normal man and was so thin that it seemed higher. His eyes were sharp and penetrating, sharp nose and a little 'hooked gave his face the expression of one brigade, except in moments of torpor to which I shall. The chin denounced him as a strong will, although the long face and covered with freckles - how often I saw those born between Hibernia and Northumbria - could sometimes express doubts and uncertainty. I realized over time that what had seemed rather insecure and only curiosity, but I knew little at the beginning of this virtues, which I thought rather than a carnal passion of the soul, believing that the mind is not rational if they were feeding, feeding only the truth, which (I thought) we already know from the outset.
Child as I was, the thing that struck me immediately about him were some clumps of yellowish hair that came out of the ears, and bushy eyebrows and blonde. Could he have fifty springs and was therefore already very old, but his restless body moved with agility that I often was lacking. His energy seemed inexhaustible when he caught an excess of activity. But from time to time, as his spirit of life participated in the shrimp, which withdrew in moments of inertia and I saw him stand for hours on his bed in his cell, barely uttering a few monosyllables, without contracting a single muscle of his face. On those occasions, appeared in his eyes vacant expression and absent, and I suspect it was during the reign of some plant materials that can give visions, if the apparent moderation which regulated his life he had led me to reject that thought. Do not deny, however, that during the journey, he stopped at times on the edge of a meadow on the edge of a forest, pick up some grass (I think the same) and there were doubts in the face with chewing thoughtfully. I took part with him, and ate in the moments of greatest tension (and often we had them at the abbey!). When I asked him once what it was, said with a smile that a good Christian can sometimes also learn from the infidels, and when I asked him to taste it, she replied that, as for the speeches, even for simple there are paidikoi of ephebikoi and gynaikoi and so on, so that herbs that are good for an old Franciscan am not good for a young Benedictine.
By the time we stayed together we had no opportunity to make life very smooth: the abbey also awake at night and we fell tired during the day, or regularly take part in holy offices. Rarely, however, traveling, watching over Compline, and he was frugal habits. Sometimes, as happened at the abbey spent all day moving to the garden, looking at the plants as if they were chrysoprases or emeralds, and I saw him walking around looking at the crypt of a treasure chest studded with emeralds and chrysoprase like a bush of thorn apple. Other times he was a full day in the great hall of the library looking through manuscripts as if seeking nothing but his pleasure (when we were multiplying around the bodies of monks killed horribly). One day I found him walking in the garden with no apparent end, as if they were accountable to God for his works. Order had taught me so many other ways to divide my time, and told him. And he said that the beauty of the cosmos derives not only from unity in variety, but also from variety in unity. It seemed to me an answer dictated by uneducated empiricism, but later learned that the men of his land is often referred to things in ways that it seems that the illuminating power of reason has very little office.
During the time we spent I saw the abbey's hands are always covered by the dust of books, thumbnails of gold still fresh, yellowish substances that had reached the hospital of Severino. It seemed he could not think of but with the hands, which then seemed more worthy of a mechanic (and I was taught that the mechanic is moechus, and commits adultery against the intellectual life which should be united in chaste nuptial): but even when his hands touched the most fragile things, like certain codes from the thumbnails still fresh, pages or corroded by time and crumbly like unleavened bread, he had, I thought, a delicacy of touch, the same that he used to touch their machines. I will say it curious that this man carried with him, in his duffel bag, tools that I had never seen before, and he described how his wonderful machine. The machines, he said, are the result of art, which is kind of monkey, and it does not reproduce the forms but the same thing. He explained that the portents of the clock, the astrolabe and the magnet. But at first I feared that it was witchcraft, and pretended to sleep some clear nights when he was placed (in the hands of a strange triangle) to observe the stars. The Franciscans I had known in Italy and in my own country people were simple, often illiterate, and I was amazed at his wisdom with him. But he said with a smile that the Franciscans of the islands were of a different mold, "Roger Bacon, whom I revere as a teacher, has taught us that God's plan will pass one day to the science of machines, which is natural and holy magic. And one day, by force of nature you can make navigational instruments for ships which go only homine regent, and far more rapid than those powered by sail or oars, and there will be floats' ut sine moveantur animal cum violent Inaestimabile, et instrumenta voland et homo sedens in average per quod ingenium instrumentis revolvens aliquod alae artificialiter composite aerem verberent, modum avis to Volantis. " It means that small raise and infinite weights that allow vehicles to travel on the seafloor. "
When I asked him where were these machines, he said that had already been made in ancient times, and some even in our times:" Except for the instrument to fly, who saw nothing and knew who had seen him, but I know a scholar who has thought about it. And you can do valichino rivers without bridges or other support columns and other machines unheard. But do not worry if there are no more, because it does not mean that there will be. And I tell you that God wants us to be, and some are already in his mind, although my friend from Occam denies that ideas exist in this way, and not because we can decide the divine nature, but because we can not ask any limits. "Nor was this the only contradictory proposition that I heard put it differently: but now that I'm older and wiser that I did not finally understood how he could have so much confidence in his friend from Occam and swear at the same time on the words of Bacon, as he had done. It 'true that those were dark times in which a wise man had to think things contradict each other.
There, I said Brother William perhaps foolish things, as if to gather impressions from the beginning that I was then disconnected. Who he was and what he was doing, my good reader, you can perhaps best be inferred the actions that worked on the days we spent in the abbey. Neither I promised you a picture taken, but a list of facts (these) wonderful and terrible.
So knowing day by day my teacher, and spending long hours in long running conversations which, if appropriate, I will say little by little, we reached the foot of the mountain on which stood the abbey. And now, as we did then, it approximates to my story, and could not shake my hand As I prepare to say what happened then.
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