Eco novels. Rose name

Umberto Eco (Italian) Umberto Eco, January 5, 1932, Alessandria, Piedmont, Italy - February 19, 2016, Milan, Lombardy, Italy) - Italian scientist, philosopher, specialist in semiotics and medieval aesthetics, cultural theorist, literary critic, writer, publicist.

Umberto Eco was born in Alessandria (a small town in Piedmont, near Turin). His father, Giulio Eco, worked as an accountant and was later a member three wars. During World War II, Umberto and his mother, Giovanna, moved to a small village in the mountains of Piedmont. Grandfather Eco was a foundling; according to the practice accepted in Italy at that time, he was given an abbreviated surname from Ex Caelis Oblatus, that is, “given by heaven.”

Giulio Eco was one of thirteen children in the family and wanted his son to receive a law education, but Umberto entered the University of Turin to study medieval philosophy and literature, and graduated successfully in 1954. During his studies, Umberto became an atheist and left the Catholic Church.

Umberto Eco worked on television, as a columnist for the largest newspaper Espresso (Italian: L’Espresso), and taught aesthetics and cultural theory at the universities of Milan, Florence and Turin. Professor at the University of Bologna. Honorary doctorate from many foreign universities. Officer of the French Legion of Honor (2003).

Since September 1962 he was married to German art teacher Renate Ramge. The couple had a son and daughter.

Eco died at his home in Milan on the evening of February 19, 2016 from pancreatic cancer, which he had been fighting for two years.

Books (25)

Collection of books

In his numerous works, Umberto Eco argues that true happiness lies in the pursuit of knowledge - “There is nothing aristocratic in the joy of knowledge. This work is comparable to the work of a peasant inventing new way tree grafting."

Baudolino

Umberto Eco's fourth novel has become one of the most books read on the planet.

It combines everything that is familiar to readers from the author’s previous works: the fascination of “The Name of the Rose”, the fantastic nature of “Foucault’s Pendulum”, the sophistication of the style of “The Island of the Day Before”. The peasant boy Baudolino, a native of the same place as Eco himself, by chance becomes the adopted son of Frederick Barbarossa. This lays the foundation for the most unexpected incidents, especially since Baudolino has one mysterious property: any of his inventions is perceived by people as the purest truth...

Satan's curse. Chronicles of a Fluid Society

Umberto Eco is the most famous Italian writer of our time, the author of the world bestsellers “The Name of the Rose” and “Foucault’s Pendulum”, a medieval historian, semiotics specialist, philologist and cultural historian, winner of the most prestigious awards, whose books have been translated into forty languages.

"The Spell of Satan. Chronicles of a fluid society" is a collection of notes published by the author in the Milanese magazine L’Espresso from 2000 to 2015, on a variety of current topics modern politics, philosophy, religion, mass media and book culture in the context of the current social situation, characterized by a crisis of ideologies and political positions. "The Spell of Satan" - last book Umberto Eco, prepared for printing by himself, is a kind of continuation of “The Cardboards of Minerva”.

History of deformity

In this book, Umberto Eco addresses the phenomenon of the ugly, which has most often been seen as the opposite of the beautiful, but has never been studied in detail.

However, ugly is a much more complex concept than simple negation. various forms beauty. Does ugliness always symbolize evil? Why for many centuries philosophers, artists, writers have invariably turned to deviations from the norm, disproportions, depicted the machinations of the devil, the horrors of the underworld, the suffering of martyrs and tragedy Last Judgment? What did they want to say with their works? How did contemporaries react to them and how do we perceive these works today?

How to write a thesis. Humanitarian sciences

A world-famous writer and professor at several universities, Umberto Eco, in this book addresses his favorite audience - teachers and students.

Everything that a scientist needs to know, especially when he takes on a diploma, dissertation, or one of his first scientific articles, is presented in this book with intelligence and tact, with pure artistic expression and with excellent technique. Any supervisor, giving this book to a graduate student or graduate student, will get rid of the hassle. Any young scientist, after working through this book, will get rid of doubts. Any cultured person, after reading this book, will receive intellectual joy.

Minerva cardboards. Notes on matchboxes

Umberto Eco, a famous scientist and writer, has been writing a weekly column in the Milanese magazine Espresso since 1985 - its name was inspired by the Minerva matches that Professor Eco, a smoker, always has on hand. His articles are the response of an intellectual endowed with a bright expressed feeling responsibility for big and small events in the world. This book contains texts from 1991 to 1999, which, in particular, contain Eco’s thoughts on how much it costs to bring down an empire, why it is a shame not to have enemies, and what to do if you are called a dirty bourgeois of the Stalinist breed.

Don't expect to get rid of books!

“Don’t get your hopes up!” - say two European intellectuals, participants in the friendly conversation offered to you: “A book is like a spoon, a hammer, a wheel or scissors. Once they were invented, nothing better could be invented.”

Umberto Eco is a famous Italian writer, medievalist and semiotician. Jean-Claude Carrière is a famous French novelist, historian, screenwriter, actor, patriarch of French cinema, who collaborated with such directors as Buñuel, Godard, Wajda and Milos Forman.

About literature. Essay

This collection of essays can be seen as a natural continuation of Six Walks in Literary Woods.

Eco conducts a conversation with the general public about the role of literature, about his favorite authors (here are Aristotle, Dante, as well as Nerval, Joyce, Borges), about the influence of certain texts on development historical events, about important narrative and stylistic devices, about key concepts literary creativity. Illustrating my reasoning striking examples from classical works, Eco turns semiotic analysis into an easy and exciting journey through the universe of fiction.

Revelations of a young novelist

A book by the great Italian writer Umberto Eco, in which he shares the secrets of his craft. The famous novel “The Name of the Rose” was published in 1980. When a prominent scientist - a semiologist, a medievalist, a specialist in popular culture - suddenly became the author of a world bestseller, he was seriously suspected of inventing an ingenious computer program, generating literary masterpieces. More than thirty years have passed, and Umberto Eco, one of greatest masters fiction, invites its readers “behind the scenes”, to where new worlds are created.

Why does Anna Karenina's suicide not leave us indifferent? Can we say that Gregor Samsa and Leopold Bloom “exist”? Where is the line between reality and fiction?

A fascinating study of the writer's creative arsenal brings unexpectedly close to answers to seemingly rhetorical questions: where do novels come from, how are they written, and why do they play such an important role in our lives.

The search for a perfect language in European culture

Umberto Eco approaches the topic of the formation of Europe in a special, unique manner. The world-famous specialist in semiotics and information theory addresses the key problem of mutual understanding between the inhabitants of Europe. Do we need a universal language for this? And if necessary, which one?

Eco examines the long and fascinating history of the searches that have been undertaken in this direction over the centuries: from the proto-language of Adam and the Babylonian confusion of dialects, through Kabbalistic research and Raymond Lull's "Great Art". magical and philosophical languages- to the “natural” projects of the 19th-20th centuries, including the famous Esperanto.

Full back!

The book collects a number of articles and speeches written from 2000 to 2005.

This is a special period. At its beginning, people experienced traditional fear of the change of millennia. The change happened, and September 11th struck, Afghan war and the Iraq War. Well, in Italy... In Italy, this time, on top of everything else, was the era of Berlusconi's rule...

Say almost the same thing. Experiments on translation

The book is addressed to everyone who is interested in translation problems and, first of all, of course, to translators.

Eco does not seek to build general theory translation, and in an accessible and entertaining form summarizes his wealth of experience in order to give very serious recommendations to everyone who recreates “almost the same thing” in their native language.

The essence of the translation process, according to Eco, is in the “negotiations” that the translator conducts with the author in order to reduce losses: they have every chance of ending successfully if the source text was reinterpreted “with passionate complicity.”

Make yourself an enemy. And other texts on occasion (collection)

Umberto Eco is an outstanding Italian scientist-philosopher, medievalist historian, semiotics specialist, literary critic, writer, author of the novels “The Name of the Rose” (1980), “Foucault’s Pendulum” (1988), and “The Island on the Eve” (1995), well known to Russian readers. ) and “Prague Cemetery” (2010).

The collection “Create Your Own Enemy” has the subtitle “texts on occasion”, since it includes essays and articles written “by order” - for thematic magazine issues or based on reports at conferences dedicated to different areas knowledge, as well as articles of a sharply polemical nature... Various “cases” - different topics. Why do people need to create an enemy for themselves? When does a soul appear in human embryos? How does technological progress change the essence and tasks of the diplomatic service?

Often these texts are humorous or parody in nature, that is, Eco wrote them, wanting to entertain both himself and his readers.

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

Umberto Eco, the largest modern writer, a medievalist, semiotician, specialist in popular culture, author of the intellectual bestseller “The Name of the Rose” (1980), presents us with a novel of a completely new type. The text in it is based on illustrations, and each illustration is a quote extracted from the context not only personal history hero, but also the story of an entire generation.

A burst blood vessel, a damaged area of ​​the brain, a completely erased personal memory. Sixty-year-old antiquarian bookseller Giambattista Bodoni remembers nothing about his past. He even forgot his name. But the treasury of “paper” memory remains unplundered, through it lies the path to oneself - through images and plots, medieval treatises and stories for teenagers, old records and radio programs, school essays and comic books - to where the mysterious flame of Queen Loana shines.

Six walks in literary forests

Six lectures given by Umberto Eco in 1994 at Harvard University are devoted to the problem of the relationship between literature and reality, author and text.

Semiotics specialist, greatest writer of our time and the attentive, omnivorous reader appear in this book as one person.

Years of life: from 01/05/1932 to 02/19/2016

Italian scientist-philosopher, medievalist historian, semiotics specialist, writer.

Umberto Eco is born January 5, 1932 in Alessandria (Piedmont), a small town east of Turin and south of Milan. Father Giulio Eco, an accountant by profession, a veteran of three wars, mother Giovanna Eco (nee Bisio).

Fulfilling the wishes of his father, who wanted his son to become a lawyer, Eco entered the University of Turin, where he took a course in jurisprudence, but soon left this science and began studying medieval philosophy. He graduated from the university in 1954, submitting an essay on religious thinker and the philosopher Thomas Aquinas.

In 1954 went to work at RAI (Italian Television), where he was editor of cultural programs and published in periodicals. IN 1958–1959 served in the army.

Eco's first book: Problems of Aesthetics in St. Thomas (1956) was subsequently revised and republished under the title Problems of Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas (1970) . The second, published in 1959 and placing the author among the most authoritative experts on the Middle Ages, after revision and revision, was republished under the title Art and Beauty in Medieval Aesthetics (1987) .

IN 1959 Eco becomes senior editor for the literature section non fiction"Milan publishing house "Bompiani" (where he worked until 1975 ) and begins to collaborate with the magazine “Il Verri”, writing a monthly column. After reading the book of the French semiotician R. Barthes (1915–1980) Mythologies (1957 ), Eco discovered that his presentation of the material was in many ways similar to Barthes’s, and therefore changed his style. Now he performs original parodies, ironically interpreting the same ideas that were seriously considered on the pages of the magazine. The articles published in Il Verri formed the collection Diario minimo (1963) , entitled according to the column led by Eco, and almost three decades later the collection Second Diario minimo was published (1992) .

In their scientific works Eco considered both general and specific problems of semiotics, for example, he deepened the theory of the iconic sign. In his opinion, the iconic sign reproduces the conditions of perception, and not at all the properties of the object it depicts, while the codes that are used in the interpretation of signs are not universal codes, they are culturally conditioned. Eco's contribution was especially significant in the field of interpretation of visual arts, in particular cinema and architecture.

The scientific merits of Eco, who, among other things, is the founder of the 1971 the magazine "Versus", dedicated to issues of semiotics, and the organizer of the first international congress on semiotics, held in Milan in 1974, are highly appreciated. He is the Secretary General of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (1972–1979) , Vice President of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (1979–1983) , Honorary President of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (with 1994 ), participant of the international UNESCO Forum (1992–1993) . Eco is a member of various academies, including the Bologna Academy of Sciences (1994) and the American Academy of Letters and Arts ( 1998 ). He is Doctor honoris causa of the Catholic University, Louvain ( 1985 ), University of Oden, Denmark ( 1986 ), Loyola University, Chicago, New York University, Royal College of Art, London (all - 1987 ), Brown University ( 1988 ), University of Paris (New Sorbonne), University of Liege (both 1989 ), Sofia University, University of Glasgow, University of Madrid (all - 1990 ), University of Kent (Canterbury) ( 1992 ), Indiana University ( 1993 ), the University of Tel Aviv, the University of Buenos Aires (both 1994 ), University of Athens ( 1995 ), Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, University of Tartu, Estonia (both 1996 ), University of Grenoble, University of La Mancha (both 1997 ), Moscow state university, Free University, Berlin (both 1998 ), member of the editorial board of the magazines “Communication”, “Degrès”, “Poetics Today”, “Problemi dell"informazione”, “Semiotica”, “Structuralist Review”, “Text”, “Word & Images”, laureate of many literary prizes, award-winning different countries, in particular, he is a Knight of the Legion of Honor, France (1993 ). About six dozen books have been written about him and great amount articles and dissertations, scientific conferences are dedicated to his work, including In Search of a Rose Eco, USA ( 1984 ), Umberto Eco: for meaning, France ( 1996 ), Eco and Borges, Spain ( 1997 ).

However, worldwide fame came not to the Eco-scientist, but to the Eco-prose writer.

When asked why he rejected the offer to become minister of culture in the late 1990s, Eco replied: “... I would like to clarify what is meant by the word “culture”. If it refers to the aesthetic products of the past - paintings, ancient buildings, medieval manuscripts - I am all for state support. But this... is handled by the Ministry of Heritage. What remains is “culture” in the sense of creativity - and here I can hardly lead a team that is trying to subsidize and inspire creative process. Creativity can only be anarchic, living according to the laws of capitalism and survival of the fittest.”

Italian writer, historian and philosopher Umberto Eco died at the age of 85 at home.

Most famous works Umberto Eco's novels are The Name of the Rose (1980), Foucault's Pendulum (1988), and The Island of the Day Before (1994). In January 2015 it was published last novel writer - “Number Zero”.

1. Italian writer, historian and philosopher Umberto Eco died at the age of 85 at home.

2. “I was born in Alessandria, the same town famous for its borsalino hats.”

Eco in Italy was considered a rather stylishly dressed man, and there was a certain touch of humor in his wardrobe.

3. In 1980, his novel “The Name of the Rose” was published, which became a bestseller and glorified the writer throughout the world.

This book later became his most famous literary work and was filmed in 1986. Main role The film stars Sean Connery and Christian Slater.

4. Eco himself considered writing not the most important part of his life. “I'm a philosopher. I only write novels on weekends.”

Umberto Eco was a scientist, a specialist in popular culture, a member of the world's leading academies, a laureate of the world's largest prizes, a holder of the Grand Cross and the Legion of Honor. Eco was an honorary doctor from many universities. He wrote a large number of essays on philosophy, linguistics, semiotics, medieval aesthetics.

5. Umberto Eco is a recognized expert in the field bondology, that is, everything related to James Bond.

6. Umberto Eco's library had about thirty thousand books.

7. Umberto Eco never ran for transport.

“One day, my Parisian classmate, the future novelist Jean-Olivier Tedesco, said, convincing me that I shouldn’t run to catch the metro: “I don’t run after trains”…. Despise your destiny. Now I don't rush to run in order to leave on schedule. This advice may seem very simple, but it worked for me. Having learned not to chase trains, I appreciated the true meaning of grace and aesthetics in behavior, and felt that I was in control of my time, schedule and life. It’s only a shame to be late for the train if you’re running after it!”

In the same way, not achieving the success that others expect from you is only offensive if you yourself strive for it. You find yourself above the mouse race and the queue at the feeding trough, and not outside of them, if you act in accordance with your own choice,” Eco reasoned.

8. To warm up, in the morning, Mr. Eco solved the following astrological puzzles.

“Everyone is always born under the wrong star, and the only way to live like a human being is to correct your horoscope every day.”

9. Eco has many fans (namely fans, not book lovers) all over the world.

License plate of an Eco fan from the USA.

10. “The best way to approach death is to convince yourself that there are only fools around.”

Umberto Eco wrote: “The idea that when death comes, all this wealth will be lost is the cause of both suffering and fear... I think: what a waste, dozens of years have been spent on building a unique experience, and all this has to be thrown away. Burn the Library of Alexandria. Blow up the Louvre.

To imprison in the depths of the sea the most wondrous, richest and full of knowledge Atlantis.” — In this essay, Eco concludes that immortal life, despite all this, would have burdened him.

, .

Umberto Eco was born on January 5, 1932 in the small town of Alessandria in the north-west of the Italian region of Piedmont. His father, Giulio Eco, a veteran of three wars, worked as an accountant. The surname Eco was given to his grandfather (a foundling) by a representative of the city administration - an abbreviation of the Latin ex caelis oblatus ("gift from heaven").

Fulfilling the wishes of his father, who wanted his son to become a lawyer, Umberto Eco entered the University of Turin, where he took a course in jurisprudence, but soon left this science and began studying medieval philosophy. In 1954, he graduated from the university, presenting an essay dedicated to the religious thinker and philosopher Thomas Aquinas as a dissertation.

In 1954, Eco joined RAI (Italian Television), where he was editor of cultural programs. In 1958-1959 he served in the army. In 1959-1975, Eco worked as a senior editor for the non-fiction literature section of the Milanese publishing house Bompiani, and also collaborated with Verri magazine and many Italian publications.

Eco carried out intensive teaching and academic activities. He lectured on aesthetics at the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy of the University of Turin and at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Milan Polytechnic Institute(1961-1964), was professor of visual communications at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Florence (1966-1969), professor of semiotics (the science that studies the properties of signs and sign systems) at the Faculty of Architecture of the Politecnico di Milano (1969-1971).

From 1971 to 2007, Eco's activities were associated with the University of Bologna, where he was Professor of Semiotics in the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy and Head of the Department of Semiotics, as well as Director of the Institute of Communication Sciences and Director of Degree Programs in Semiotics.

Eco taught at various universities around the world: Oxford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia University. He gave lectures and conducted seminars also at universities Soviet Union and Russia, Tunisia, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Sweden, Poland, Japan, as well as in such cultural centers, like the US Library of Congress and the USSR Writers Union.

Eco-semiotician became famous after the publication of the book “Opera aperta” (1962), where the concept of an “open work” was given, the idea of ​​which can have several interpretations, while a “closed work” can have one single interpretation. Among the scientific publications, the most famous are “Frightened and United” (1964) on the theory of mass communication, “Joyce’s Poetics” (1965), “The Sign” (1971), “Treatise on General Semiotics” (1975), “On the Periphery of Empire” (1977). ) on the problems of cultural history, “Semiotics and philosophy of language” (1984), “Limits of interpretation” (1990).

The scientist has done a lot to understand the phenomena of postmodernism and popular culture.

Eco became the founder of the semiotics magazine Versus, published since 1971, and the organizer of the first international congress on semiotics in Milan (1974). He was President of the International Center for Semiotic and Cognitive Research and Director of the Department of Semiotic and Cognitive Research.

However, Eco's worldwide fame came not as a scientist, but as a prose writer. His first novel, The Name of the Rose (1980), was on the bestseller list for several years. The book has been translated into many foreign languages, awarded the Italian Strega Prize (1981) and the French Medici Prize (1982). The film adaptation of the novel "The Name of the Rose" (1986), made by French film director Jean-Jacques Annaud, received the Cesar Award in 1987.

The writer also wrote the novels “Foucault’s Pendulum” (1988), “The Island on the Eve” (1994), “Baudolino” (2000), “The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana” (2004). In October 2010, Eco's novel "Prague Cemetery" was published in Italy. At the XIII International Fair of Intellectual Literature Non/Fiction in Moscow, this book became an absolute bestseller.

The writer’s seventh novel, “Number Zero,” was published in 2015 on his birthday.

Eco is also a recognized expert in the field of Bondology, the study of all things James Bond.

He was a member of various academies, including the Bologna Academy of Sciences (1994) and the American Academy of Letters and Arts (1998), honorary doctorates from many universities around the world, and winner of various literary awards. Eco was awarded by many countries, including the French Legion of Honor (1993), the German Order of Merit (1999). Several dozen books and many articles and dissertations have been written about him, and scientific conferences have been dedicated to him.

IN last years the writer combined active scientific and teaching activities with appearances in the media, responding to major events public life and politics.

He was married to a German woman, Renate Ramge, who worked as an art consultant. They had two children.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Umberto Eco

From the translator

Before Umberto Eco published the first piece of art- the novel “The Name of the Rose”, - it was known in academic circles in Italy and throughout scientific world as an authoritative specialist in the philosophy of the Middle Ages and in the field of semiotics - the science of signs. He developed, in particular, the problems of the relationship between the text and the audience, both on the material of avant-garde literature and on heterogeneous material of mass culture. Undoubtedly, Umberto Eco wrote the novel to help himself scientific observations, equipping his “postmodern” intellectual prose with the springs of fascination.

The “launch” (as they say in Italy) of the book was skillfully prepared by advertising in the press. The public was also clearly attracted by the fact that Eco had been running a column in the Espresso magazine for many years, which introduced the average subscriber to current humanitarian problems. And yet, real success exceeds all the expectations of publishers and literary critics.

Exotic flavor plus exciting criminal intrigue ensures interest in the novel to a mass audience. And a significant ideological charge, combined with irony and playing with literary associations, attracts intellectuals. In addition, it is well known how popular the genre itself is. historical novel both here and in the West. Eco also took this factor into account. His book is a complete and accurate guide to the Middle Ages. Anthony Burgess writes in his review: “People read Arthur Haley to find out about airport life. If you read this book, you will not be left in any doubt about how the monastery functioned in the 14th century.”

For nine years, according to the results of national polls, the book has been in first place in the “hot twenty of the week” (the Italians respectfully place in last place in the same twenty “ Divine Comedy"). It is noted that, thanks to the wide dissemination of Eco’s book, the number of students enrolling in the department of medieval history is greatly increasing. The novel did not go unnoticed by readers of Turkey, Japan, of Eastern Europe; captured the North American book market for a fairly long period, which is very rarely achieved by a European writer.

One of the secrets of such stunning success is revealed to us in the theoretical work of Eco himself, where he discusses the need for “entertainment” in literature. The literary avant-garde of the 20th century was, as a rule, alienated from the stereotypes of mass consciousness. In the 70s Western literature However, the feeling has matured that breaking stereotypes and language experimentation in themselves do not provide the “joy of the text” in its entirety. It began to be felt that an essential element of literature was the pleasure of storytelling.

“I wanted the reader to be entertained. At least as much as I had fun. Contemporary novel I tried to abandon plot-based entertainment in favor of other types of entertainment. I, a pious believer in Aristotelian poetics, have believed all my life that a novel should entertain with its plot. Or even primarily by the plot,” writes Eco in his essay on “The Name of the Rose,” included in this edition.

But The Name of the Rose is not only entertainment. Eco remains faithful to another principle of Aristotle: literary work must contain serious intellectual meaning.

The Brazilian priest, one of the main representatives of “liberation theology” Leonardo Boff writes about Eco’s novel: “This is not only a Gothic story from the life of an Italian Benedictine monastery of the 14th century. Undoubtedly, the author uses all the cultural realities of the era (with an abundance of detail and erudition), maintaining the greatest historical accuracy. But all this is for the sake of issues that remain highly significant today, as they were yesterday. There is a struggle between two life projects, personal and social: one project stubbornly strives to preserve what exists, to preserve it by all means, even to the point of destroying other people and self-destruction; the second project strives for the permanent discovery of something new, even at the cost of its own destruction.”

Critic Cesare Zaccaria believes that the writer’s appeal to the detective genre is caused, among other things, by the fact that “this genre was better than others in expressing the inexorable charge of violence and fear inherent in the world in which we live.” Yes, undoubtedly, many particular situations of the novel and its main conflict are completely “read” as an allegorical reflection of the situations of the current, 20th century. Thus, many reviewers, and the author himself in one of his interviews, draw parallels between the plot of the novel and the murder of Aldo Moro. Comparing the novel “The Name of the Rose” with the book famous writer Leonardo Sciasci “The Moro Case”, critic Leonardo Lattarulo writes: “At their core is an ethical question par excellence, revealing the insurmountable problematicity of ethics. It's about about the problem of evil. This return to the detective story, carried out seemingly in the pure interests of literary play, is in fact frighteningly serious, for it is entirely inspired by the hopeless and hopeless seriousness of ethics.”

Now the reader gets the opportunity to get acquainted with the sensational new product of 1980 in its entirety.

Of course, the manuscript

On August 16, 1968, I purchased a book entitled “Notes of Father Adson from Melk, translated into French according to the publication of Father J. Mabillon" (Paris, printing house of LaSource Abbey, 1842). The author of the translation was a certain Abbot Balle. In a rather poor historical commentary, it was reported that the translator followed word for word the edition of a 14th-century manuscript found in the library of the Melk monastery by the famous seventeenth-century scholar who contributed so much to the historiography of the Benedictine Order. Thus, a rarity found in Prague (for the third time, it turns out) saved me from melancholy in a foreign country, where I was waiting for the one who was dear to me. A few days later the poor city was occupied Soviet troops. I managed to cross the Austrian border in Linz; From there I easily reached Vienna, where I finally met the woman, and together we set off on a journey up the Danube.

In a state of nervous excitement, I reveled in Adson’s terrifying story and was so captivated that I didn’t notice how I began to translate, filling out the wonderful large notebooks of the Joseph Gibert company, in which it is so pleasant to write, if, of course, the pen is soft enough. Meanwhile, we found ourselves in the vicinity of Melk, where the Stift, which had been rebuilt many times, still stands on a cliff above a bend in the river. As the reader has probably already understood, no traces of Father Adson’s manuscript were found in the monastery library.