Nomi della rosa. Dissoluzione e arricchimenti

Abstract

The Name of the Rose: what more can be said? More than forty years after its first publication, everything and its opposite has been written about Umberto Eco’s historical-detective-philosophical novel. Interpretations and overinterpretations by critics and intellectuals of every kind and from every country—all, in the end, attempts to explain the reasons (literary? narrative? sociological? financial?) for its worldwide success. A story of medieval monks who slit each other’s throats to get their hands (literally) on Aristotle’s second book of the Poetics, full of erudite dialogues and Latin quotations, antiquarian references and winks at current events, which quickly became a best seller. No one could have imagined it—least of all its author, convinced he had written nothing more than a divertissement for a few friends, and yet soon swept away by adoring crowds of millions of readers. How was it possible?