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Rating: Dear Umberto,
I start to write you this letter while I find myself inside an abbey, following the investigations of Brother William and Adso. And while I'm here, a phrase came back to mind.
Wasn't it you who said that Those who do not read, at 70 will have lived only one life: their own. Those who read will have lived 5000 years: they were there when Cain killed Abel, when Renzo married Lucia, when Leopardi admired the infinite... because reading is an immortality backwards?
If this is true, then I too am traveling through time and I must thank you for the guided tour inside the abbey and its library, its dormitories, its chapter house, its infirmary, its baths, the stairs, the labyrinths, the towers, the windows, the inner and outer walls, the windows, the cloister, the stables, the barns, and the forges.
Thanks to you, I met the one who in the new millennium reads the signs of the coming of the devil, I met Fra Dolcino and his heresies, I met Ubertino da Casale and his wisdom. I saw many reticent friars. And then, inside the abbey, in the words of Adso, of Brother William, of Adso, of the Abbot, of Berengar, and all his fellows, I saw the entire reality of the fourteenth century: from the abbey, I saw the growth of Communes and universities, I learned about the work of the inquisitorial courts, of the imperial and papal seats, of convents, monasteries, villages, the curtis, the fiefs.
And I saw the appearance of three corpses. I investigated and discovered, guided, some of the many mysteries that hover in all enclosed places.
All of this, I was able to do within the span of six days of history. And yes, you guided me inside the abbey with such care during these days that now I seem to be able to visit it on my own. And shortly after spending a sleepless night following the shadows that roamed the stairs and corridors, closing my eyes a little in Brother William's cell, I went out for a while from the abbey.
And I thought about the journey I took with Dante and Virgil, passing through the woods, hell, and purgatory, in only five days' time. And I met Charon, Paolo and Francesca, Ciacco, Farinata, Ulysses and Ugolino, Cato and Pia de' Tolomei. And I thought that in two weeks in a villa near Florence, I could meet Ciappelletto, Andreuccio, Lisabetta, Federigo degli Alberighi, Friar Cipolla, Calandrino, and Ghiselda.
How much longer until the times I will fight with Drogo or K. and will see their rationality succumb in the face of the crumbling world. The days, the months, the years will fly by and only dust will remain in the hands.
I really ask you if there is a thread that connects your work to the great works of those centuries. And I imagine that you might say that in yours, as in these other works, there is a massive trust in human reason, there is a great rationality that amidst the unknown, the chaos, the mystery, does not give up on its task to control and put order in the chaos that increasingly resembles the end of days.
Awaiting your response,
I greet you,
A reader.
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