Visit the abbey that inspired the author of The Name of the Rose
Umberto Eco’s Italy
Claire Webb - 1 October 2019
The tv adaptation of Umberto Eco’s famous detective story The Name of the Rose that starts this week will transport viewers to the Middle Ages. Published in 1980, the Italian novelist’s philosophical murder mystery is one of the biggest-selling novels of all time and is believed to have been inspired by one of Italy’s most beautiful medieval abbeys. Its hero is a Sherlock Holmes-style Franciscan friar – played in the TV version by American actor John Turturro (right) – who visits an isolated monastery with a labyrinthine library and takes it upon himself to investigate a string of unexplained deaths.
PERCHED ON A PEAK IN PIEDMONT
Some spectacular locations in Abruzzo, Lazio and Umbria were used in the new Italian-German TV co-production (there was a film version with Sean Connery in 1986). But fans of the book will need to head further north to see the original source of inspiration. Eco, who died in 2016, is said to have based his abbey on Sacra di San Michele, a tenth-century monastery perched atop a little rocky mountain in Piedmont.
For more than 600 years, it housed a powerful Benedictine community and was a major landmark on the Via Francigena, an ancient pilgrimage route to Rome that began in Canterbury and ended in Puglia. Today’s pilgrims have an easier journey: the monastery is only 25 miles from Piedmont’s cosmopolitan capital Turin, and you can drive up a winding road if you don’t fancy the steep footpath.
At the top, you’re rewarded with sublime views of the snow-capped Italian Alps, but perhaps it was also the 10,000-volume library and morbid history that inspired Eco. The grand 243-step stairway up to the Gothic-Romanesque church is called the “Stairway of the Dead” because skeletons of dead monks used to decorate its niches. One of the abbey’s towers is named after a beautiful peasant girl who hurled herself from it.
Thanks to Eco’s bestselling novel, around 100,000 people visit the monastery each year. But the drama’s most striking locations are also well worth a visit and are all within a couple of hours’ drive of Rome.
THE “DYING TOWN” OF LAZIO
Officially designated one of the most beautiful towns in Italy, Civita di Bagnoregio is situated in Lazio about 75 miles north of Rome. In The Name of the Rose it doubles for the abbey’s exterior. Founded more than 2,500 years ago by the Etruscans, it clings to a crumbling plateau of volcanic rock and has shrunk over the centuries as earthquakes and landslides eroded its foundations, and houses collapsed into ravines. It was nicknamed “the dying town” and most of its inhabitants moved away.
Today it has just 11 permanent residents and can only be reached by footbridge. However, tourism has given it a second lease of life: bed and breakfasts, holiday homes, restaurants and souvenir shops have opened, and geo-engineers are working to secure its future.
ABRUZZO’S CASTLE IN THE SKY
A castle in Abruzzo was also used as the abbey exterior. Anchored to a rocky ledge, Castello di Roccascalegna looms over a small village of the same name. It’s known locally as “the castle in the sky” and some claim the ghost of a 17th-century baron haunts it. The story goes that the baron was stabbed to death after forcing local brides to spend their wedding night with him instead of their grooms, and left a bloody handprint on a rock that villagers claimed to see long after it was washed way.
Presumably to garner some positive publicity, last year the Mayor of Roccascalegna announced he was going to hire the castle out for weddings and private parties for just €100. Within driving distance of Rome, the castle is open during weekends and holidays and daily in July and August.
UMBRIA’S MEDIEVAL CAPITAL
Equidistant from Rome and Florence, Perugia is the largest city in Umbria but its historic centre has barely changed in 500 years. Cobbled alleys lead to ancient arches and piazzas flanked by fabulous Gothic palazzi and imposing basilicas. You ascend to the old town via an escalator that takes you through the underground remains of a Renaissance fortress built for Pope Paul III.
This despised citadel was built on top of the houses of the defeated local nobility as a symbol of papal power. The Umbrians later razed it, which is why only the foundations remain. Filming for The Name of the Rose took place here and in Piazza IV Novembre, the lively cathedral square at the heart of the city.
PERCHED ON A PEAK IN PIEDMONT
Some spectacular locations in Abruzzo, Lazio and Umbria were used in the new Italian-German TV co-production (there was a film version with Sean Connery in 1986). But fans of the book will need to head further north to see the original source of inspiration. Eco, who died in 2016, is said to have based his abbey on Sacra di San Michele, a tenth-century monastery perched atop a little rocky mountain in Piedmont.
For more than 600 years, it housed a powerful Benedictine community and was a major landmark on the Via Francigena, an ancient pilgrimage route to Rome that began in Canterbury and ended in Puglia. Today’s pilgrims have an easier journey: the monastery is only 25 miles from Piedmont’s cosmopolitan capital Turin, and you can drive up a winding road if you don’t fancy the steep footpath.
At the top, you’re rewarded with sublime views of the snow-capped Italian Alps, but perhaps it was also the 10,000-volume library and morbid history that inspired Eco. The grand 243-step stairway up to the Gothic-Romanesque church is called the “Stairway of the Dead” because skeletons of dead monks used to decorate its niches. One of the abbey’s towers is named after a beautiful peasant girl who hurled herself from it.
Thanks to Eco’s bestselling novel, around 100,000 people visit the monastery each year. But the drama’s most striking locations are also well worth a visit and are all within a couple of hours’ drive of Rome.
THE “DYING TOWN” OF LAZIO
Officially designated one of the most beautiful towns in Italy, Civita di Bagnoregio is situated in Lazio about 75 miles north of Rome. In The Name of the Rose it doubles for the abbey’s exterior. Founded more than 2,500 years ago by the Etruscans, it clings to a crumbling plateau of volcanic rock and has shrunk over the centuries as earthquakes and landslides eroded its foundations, and houses collapsed into ravines. It was nicknamed “the dying town” and most of its inhabitants moved away.
Today it has just 11 permanent residents and can only be reached by footbridge. However, tourism has given it a second lease of life: bed and breakfasts, holiday homes, restaurants and souvenir shops have opened, and geo-engineers are working to secure its future.
ABRUZZO’S CASTLE IN THE SKY
A castle in Abruzzo was also used as the abbey exterior. Anchored to a rocky ledge, Castello di Roccascalegna looms over a small village of the same name. It’s known locally as “the castle in the sky” and some claim the ghost of a 17th-century baron haunts it. The story goes that the baron was stabbed to death after forcing local brides to spend their wedding night with him instead of their grooms, and left a bloody handprint on a rock that villagers claimed to see long after it was washed way.
Presumably to garner some positive publicity, last year the Mayor of Roccascalegna announced he was going to hire the castle out for weddings and private parties for just €100. Within driving distance of Rome, the castle is open during weekends and holidays and daily in July and August.
UMBRIA’S MEDIEVAL CAPITAL
Equidistant from Rome and Florence, Perugia is the largest city in Umbria but its historic centre has barely changed in 500 years. Cobbled alleys lead to ancient arches and piazzas flanked by fabulous Gothic palazzi and imposing basilicas. You ascend to the old town via an escalator that takes you through the underground remains of a Renaissance fortress built for Pope Paul III.
This despised citadel was built on top of the houses of the defeated local nobility as a symbol of papal power. The Umbrians later razed it, which is why only the foundations remain. Filming for The Name of the Rose took place here and in Piazza IV Novembre, the lively cathedral square at the heart of the city.