Where you arrive at the foot of the abbey and William
gives evidence of great acumen
was a beautiful morning in late November. During the night it had snowed a little, but the ground was covered with a veil cool and no bigger than three fingers. In the dark, after praise, we heard Mass in a village in the valley. Then we set en route to the mountains at sunrise.
As we scrambled up the steep path that wound around the mountain, I saw the abbey. No wonder it's the walls that encircled on all sides, similar to others that I saw in the whole Christian world, but the bulk of what would later be learned the building. This was an octagonal building that appeared to distance as a tetragon (most perfect figure that expresses the strength and the elusiveness of the City of God), whose southern sides stood on the plateau of the abbey, while the northern hemisphere appear to grow from the same strata of the mountain, on which s'innervavano sheer . I say that in a few places from the bottom, it seemed that the rocks were to be extended toward the sky, seamless color and material, and become at some point keep and tower (the work of giants who had great familiarity with the land and with sky). Three rows of windows, said the pace of his triune cannot, so that what was physically on earth square, triangular spiritually in the sky. Nell'appressarvici most, yeah understood that the quadrangular yielded at each of its corners, a heptagonal tower, five sides are stretched out - then four of the eight sides of the octagon eptagoni generate four more children, and outside were manifested as pentagons. And no one can see the admirable harmony of so many holy numbers, each revealing a fine spiritual sense. Eight the number of perfection in every tetragon, four the number of the Gospels, five the number of parts of the world, seven the number of gifts of the Holy Spirit. For its size, and shape, the building appeared to me as I later saw in the Italian peninsula south of Castel Ursino Castle or from the mountain, but the location was inaccessible to those more terrible, and capable of generating fear in the traveler to approach it gradually. And fortunately, being a crystal clear winter morning, the building appeared to me as you see it on stormy days.
I will not say, however, suggest that this feeling of playfulness. I took out fear, anxiety and a fine. God knows that there were ghosts of my soul immature, and that properly interpreted indubitable omens recorded in stone, since the day that the Giants will put his hand, and before that the deluded will dare the monks consecrate the custody of the divine word.
While our mules struggled for the last bend of the mountain, where the main road branches off to the crossroads, creating two side trails, my teacher stopped for a while, looking around at the roadside, and on the road, and over the road, where a series of evergreen pines formed a natural roof a short, white-haired snow.
"Abbey rich," he said. "The abbot like to look good in public occasions."
Accustomed as I was to hear him do the most unusual statements, not questioned. Even so, after another stretch of road, we heard noises, and a breakthrough appeared agitated a handful of monks and families. One of them, as we saw, we were met with great urbanity: "Welcome sir," he said, "and do not be surprised if I imagine who you are, because we have been advised of your visit. I am Varagine Remigio, cellarer of the monastery. And if you are, I believe, Bascavilla Brother William, the abbot must be warned. You, "an instruction given to the follow-up," Up to warn that our visitor is about to enter the city! "
" Thank you, Mr. cellarer, "my teacher replied cordially," and the more I appreciate your kindness as to greet you stopped the pursuit. But fear not, the horse has gone from here and headed for the right trail. It can not go very far because, come the deposit of litter, must stop. E ' too smart to throw herself down the steep terrain ... "
" When you saw him? "said the cellarer.
"We have not seen at all, is not it Adso?" William said, turning to me with amusement. "But if you look Brunello, the animal can not be where I said."
The cellarer hesitated. He looked at William, then the path, and finally asked, "Brunello? How do you know? "
" Why, "William said," it is clear that you are looking for Brunello, the abbot's favorite horse, the best galloper of your team, black hair, five feet high, tailed sumptuous, from the small base and round but far from galloping regular minutes head, ears, thin but large eyes. E 'went right, I tell you, and hurry, anyway. "
The cellarer had a moment's hesitation, then made a sign to her and threw himself down the right path, while our mules resumed their climb. As I was to interview William, because I was bitten by curiosity, he beckoned me to wait: and indeed few minutes later we heard screams of joy, and at the turn of the path reappeared monks and servants bringing the horse to the bit. We pass by continuing to look a little stunned and preceded us into the abbey. I also believe that William slowing the pace to his mount to allow them to tell what had happened. In fact I got to realize that my teacher, in every way a man of high virtue, indulge in the vice of vanity when it came to demonstrate his insight and, having already enjoyed the subtle diplomatic skills, I realized that he wanted to reach the goal preceded by a solid reputation as a wise man.
"Now tell me," at the end I could not stop myself, "how did you know?"
"My good Adso," said the master. "It 's the journey that teaches you to recognize the tracks with which the world speaks to us like a great book. Alano said that
Islands
omnis mundi quasi liber et pictura creature
nobis est in speculum
and thought inexhaustible reserves of symbols with which God, through His creatures, we speak of eternal life. But the universe is even more talkative as he thought Alan and not only speaks of the last things (in which case it does so in an obscure way) but also those coming, and it's clear. I am almost ashamed to repeat what you should know. At the crossroads, still fresh in the snow, stood out very clearly the marks of the hooves of a horse, pointing the path to our left. A beautiful and equal distance from each other, the signs said that the base was small and round, and the gallop of great regularity - so I deduced that the nature of the horse, and the fact that it did not run wildly like a crazed animal. Where the pines formed a natural canopy, some branches had been freshly broken right height of five feet. One of the blackberry bushes, where the animal must have turned to thread the path to his right, while fiercely shook her beautiful tail, still keeping in the thorns of the long jet black hair ... Finally, do not tell me you do not know that that path leads to the deposit of litter, because going up the hairpin than we've seen the slime of debris down to the foot of the cliff south tower, bad snow, and as the trivium was provided, the path could only lead in that direction. "
"Yes," I said, "but the small head, pointed ears, big eyes ..."
"I do not know if they have, but no doubt the monks firmly believe. Isidore of Seville said that the beauty of a horse requires "caput et ut sit exiguum siccum prope skin ossibus adhaerente, Aures et breves argutae, oculi magni, nares patulae, cervix erecta, dense coma et cauda, \u200b\u200bungularum fixa rotunditas solidity." If the horse which I have inferred the transition was not really the best of the team, does not explain why it was not just to chase the grooms, but it is troubling even the cellarer. It considers that a monaco an excellent horse, beyond the natural forms, can not view it as the auctoritates have described him, especially if, 'and here he smiled slyly to myself, "is a learned Benedictine ...»".
"Okay," I said, "but because Brunello?"
"May the Holy Spirit gives you more for brains than what you have, my son," said the teacher. "What's another name you would have given even if the great Buridan, who is becoming dean in Paris, having to talk about a beautiful horse, as he found more natural?"
That was my teacher. Not only could read the great book of nature, but also in the way monks read the books of Scripture, and thinking through those. Dote, as we shall see, had to return very useful in the days to follow. His explanation also seemed to me at that point so obvious that the humiliation for not having found himself was overwhelmed with pride to be shared and now I almost congratulated myself on my subtlety. Such is the power of true, as the good is diffusive of itself. And praised be the holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ for this wonderful revelation that I had. But
resume the row, or my story, for this aging monaco lingers too much marginalia. Of 'rather than arrived at the great portal of the abbey, and the threshold at which the abbot was holding up a bowl two novices gold filled with water. And as we were let down by our animals, he washed his hands with William, then embraced him, kissing him on the mouth and giving him his holy welcome, while the cellarer took care of me.
"Thank Abo," William said, "is a great joy for me to put your foot in the magnificence of the monastery, whose fame has crossed the mountains. I come as a pilgrim in the name of our Lord and as such you have honored me. But I am also in the name of our Lord on this earth, as the letter will tell you that I am giving you, and also on his behalf I thank you for your welcome. "
The abbot took the letter with the imperial seals and said that in any case William was the coming of was preceded by other letters of his brother (dappoiché, I said to myself with some pride, it is difficult to take a Benedictine abbot of surprise), then asked the cellarer to lead us to our camp, while the grooms we took the horses. The abbot promised to visit us later when we had eaten enough, and we entered the large courtyard where the abbey buildings stretched along the plain cake that blunted in a soft shell - or Alpine - the top of the mountain.
layout of the abbey will have occasion to say several times, and in greater detail. After the portal (which was the only opening in the walls) opened an avenue of trees leading to the abbey church. On the left side of the street lay a huge area of \u200b\u200bgardens and, as I learned later, the botanical garden, around the two buildings of the hospital and bathing and herbal medicine, which follows the curve of the walls. On the bottom left corner of the church, stood the building, separate from the church by a plain-covered graves. The northern entrance of the church watched the south tower of the building, gave the visitors the front west tower, then left it tied to the walls and towers plunged into the abyss, which protruded the north tower, which could be seen askew. To the right of the church stretched some buildings that were near and around the cloister, the dormitory of course, the house of the abbot and Home of the pilgrims who were heading crossing and reaching a beautiful garden. On the right side, beyond a broad esplanade along the south wall and continuing to the east behind the church, a number of districts farmhouses, barns, mills, oil mills, barns and cellars, and what seemed to me to be the house of novices . The regularity of the ground, just rolling, he allowed the builders of that sacred place to comply with the dictates of orientation, better than they could have claimed Honorius Augustoduniense or Guillaume Durand. From the position of the sun at that hour of the day, I noticed that the portal was opened fully to the west, so that the choir and the altar were facing east, and the sun early morning awakening could arise directly monks in the dormitory and the animals in their stalls. I saw the most beautiful abbey and admirably directed, although later I met San Gallo, and Cluny and Fontenay, and others, perhaps larger but less proportionate. Unlike the others, this is noted, however, for the immeasurable amount of Building. I had the experience of a master mason, but I immediately realized it was much older than the buildings around him, born perhaps for other purposes, and that all had been placed around the abbey in later times, but so that the orientation of large construction corresponds to that of the church, this or that. Because the architecture is of all the arts that most boldly tries to reproduce in its rhythm the order of the universe, which the ancients called kosmos, that is decorated as it is like a big animal on which shines the perfection and the proportion of all its limbs. And praise be to our Creator, as Augustine says, has established all things in number, weight and size.
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