Adelmo's Death

Adelmo of Otranto, a young monk already famous as a master illuminator, was found dead at the foot of the cliff below the Aedificium on the morning after a snowstorm, an event that plunged the abbey into suspicion and launched William of Baskerville's investigation. His death, initially ambiguous between suicide and murder, proved to be the first in a series of killings driven by the desperate protection of a forbidden book, and it exposed the hidden passions and intellectual pride festering within the monastery's walls.

Discovery and Circumstances

Adelmo's body was discovered by a goatherd at the bottom of the sheer drop beneath the Aedificium, torn by the rocks it had struck during the fall. He had been seen in choir during compline but had not reappeared at matins, suggesting he fell during the darkest hours of the night, which was marked by a great snowstorm driven by a furious south wind. The body was soaked by the snow, which had first melted and then frozen into shards of ice. The abbot, Abo, reported that all the windows of the Aedificium were found closed, with no sign of water at the foot of any of them, a detail that immediately ruled out an accidental fall and pointed either to suicide or to a push by human or diabolical force.

William's Initial Deduction

William of Baskerville, upon hearing the abbot's account, deduced that the windows must have been closed because if one had been open, suicide would have been the only conceivable explanation, and Adelmo would not have been granted Christian burial. Since he was buried in consecrated ground, the windows were closed, and the death was therefore not a simple suicide. William further reasoned that the absence of water at the foot of the windows, given the south wind, confirmed that the fall could not have occurred from an open window on the east side. He hypothesized that Adelmo had thrown himself from the parapet of the wall, struck the rocks, and then been carried down by a landslide caused by the storm, a theory that required fewer assumptions than a murder involving entry into the locked library.

The Hidden Truth: Remorse and a Sinful Bargain

Adelmo's death was ultimately a suicide, driven by profound remorse after a series of events that began with a sinful bargain. The assistant librarian, Berengar of Arundel, who was consumed by an illicit passion for Adelmo, had offered to reveal a secret of the library in exchange for carnal favors. Adelmo, who was himself complicit in the act, then sought absolution from the stern Jorge of Burgos, who attacked him with distressing reprimands and perhaps refused absolution. Overcome with despair, Adelmo rushed into the church, where he was approached by Venantius of Salvemec, to whom he may have confided the secret he had learned from Berengar. Feeling abandoned and unable to quell his remorse, Adelmo determined to kill himself, encountering Berengar in the cemetery and calling him his "beautiful master" in turpitude before heading to his death.

Narrative Role and Significance

Adelmo's death serves as the catalyst for the entire plot, drawing William into the abbey's mysteries and revealing the dangerous intersection of lust, intellectual pride, and the desperate protection of forbidden knowledge. His fate is a direct consequence of the abbey's culture of secrecy and the harsh, unforgiving piety of figures like Jorge, who used fear and condemnation rather than mercy. The event also introduces the central motif of the library as a place of both allure and peril, and it foreshadows the series of murders that will follow as others, like Venantius, pursue the same dangerous secret that Adelmo paid for with his life.