Build a movie plot around this: Who were the monk's burning before allowing the local peasants to save the girl? The prisoners
This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (September 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)As an old man, Adso, son of the Baron of Melk recounts how, as a young novice in 1327, he joined his mentor, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville on a journey to a Benedictine abbey in Northern Italy where the Franciscans were to debate with Papal emissaries the poverty of Christ. The abbey also boasts a famed scriptorium where scribes copy, translate or illuminate books. The suspicious recent death of the monk Adelmo of Otranto a young but famous manuscript illuminator has stirred fears among the abbey's inhabitants. The Abbot seeks help from William, known for his deductive powers. Adelmo's death cannot be a suicide because his body was found below a tower with only a window which cannot be opened. William is reluctant, but also drawn by the intellectual challenge and his desire to disprove fears of a demonic culprit. William also fears the abbot will summon officials of the Inquisition if the mystery remains unsolved.William soon concludes that Adelmo's death was indeed suicide; he fell from a different tower. Nevertheless, Venantius, a Greek translator and the last to speak with Adelmo is found dead in a vat filled with the blood of slaughtered pigs. The translator's corpse bears a black stain on a finger and his tongue. At a loss, William insists that Adelmo killed himself and that the translator's death can be reasonably explained. The other monks suspect a supernatural cause, fears reinforced when the saintly Fransciscan monk Ubertino of Casale warns that the deaths resemble signs mentioned in the Book of Revelation.In the scriptorium, William inspects Adelmo's desk, but is blocked by Brother Berengar, the assistant librarian. Brother Malachia, Head Librarian, denies William access to the rest of the building.William encounters Salvatore, a demented hunchback, and...