Destruction of the Library by Fire

The Destruction of the Library by Fire is the catastrophic climax of the novel, in which the blind librarian Jorge of Burgos, having been confronted by William of Baskerville in the secret finis Africae chamber, devours the sole surviving copy of Aristotle's Poetics II and then deliberately starts a conflagration that consumes the entire library and most of the abbey. This event simultaneously destroys the forbidden book Jorge had guarded for decades, kills the old man himself, and annihilates the greatest Christian library of the age, realizing Jorge's apocalyptic prophecy and leaving William and Adso to confront the ruin of both the physical building and the ideal of a knowable, ordered universe.

The Confrontation and the Book

In the heptagonal blind room of the finis Africae, William and Adso find Jorge seated behind a table, waiting for them. Jorge admits he has been expecting William since that afternoon, when he closed himself inside. He reveals that he has already killed the abbot, Abo, by trapping him in the secret stairway and breaking the rope that controlled the mechanism, ensuring the abbot would suffocate. Jorge explains that he acted because the abbot, informed by William, had demanded the finis Africae be opened, and the Italian monks were pressing for an end to the mysteries. Jorge declares he has killed no one directly, but that each death was according to destiny and sin, and that he was merely an instrument. William accuses Jorge of being the Devil himself, not the Prince of Matter, but the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth never seized by doubt. Jorge, in turn, calls William a clown, like Francis of Assisi, who made a performance of everything. The old man then begins to slowly tear the limp pages of the manuscript, stuffing them into his mouth and swallowing them, declaring that he is sealing what was not to be said, taking and devouring it as the voice commanded in the Apocalypse. He laughs for the first time, a throaty, weeping sound, and as William tries to stop him, Jorge thrusts his hand onto the lamp flame, extinguishing the light and plunging the room into darkness. He then flees, moving with silent, practiced steps through the labyrinth.

The Fire Spreads

William and Adso pursue Jorge through the dark library, guided by the sounds of his tearing and eating. They corner him in a room of YSPANIA, where he has fallen among spilled books. As they seize him, Jorge tears the lamp from Adso's hand and flings it onto a pile of open parchments. The oil spills, and the fragile pages blaze up instantly. William realizes the danger and lets go of Jorge, but the old man, sensing the heat, hurls the remains of the Aristotle into the heart of the fire. William pushes Jorge violently, and the old man slams into a bookcase, hitting his head and falling to the ground, but William pays him no heed. The fire spreads rapidly. Sparks fly to the walls, and the volumes on another bookcase begin to burn. William tries to beat out the flames with a stoutly bound book, but this only stirs more sparks. The air, filled with gusts from the strong wind outside, carries the burning scraps to kindle further pages. The room, already disordered by Jorge's fall, is filled with loose parchments that become fuel. In moments, the place is a brazier, a burning bush, and the bookcases themselves begin to crackle. William realizes the entire labyrinth is an immense sacrificial pyre, prepared for the first spark.

The Failed Rescue

William and Adso rush down to the kitchen, but William quickly sees that carrying pans of water up to the second floor is futile. He tells Adso to give the alarm. Adso runs to the church, finds the bell tower, and rings the alarm by pulling all the ropes, burning his hands in the process. Monks and servants emerge from the dormitory and lodgings, but they are confused and disorganized. The library, long considered sacred and inaccessible, is not immediately understood to be in danger. Nicholas of Morimondo finally grasps the situation and shouts orders, sending men to wells and water tanks, but there is no clear authority: the abbot is dead, the cellarer is imprisoned, and the librarian is dead. The rescue effort is chaotic. Men carrying water up the stairs collide with others rushing down, terrified. Jars break, and water spreads uselessly over the ground. Benno of Uppsala, his face distorted, takes a large vessel and plunges boldly into the smoke of the upper floor, never to be seen again. The keystone of a vault in the scriptorium comes loose and falls, and the floor of the labyrinth begins to give way. The fire, having consumed the library, spreads to the scriptorium below, and then to the kitchen floor.

The Destruction of the Abbey

The fire, fed by the wind, leaps from the Aedificium to the roof of the abbey church. The church, with its wooden altars, choir stalls, and roof beams, catches fire in no time. The monks then realize the entire abbey is at stake, but there is no more water, and the wells supply it too slowly. The flames spread from above, and the high vaults collapse, crushing firefighters. The wind then carries the fire to the barns and stables. The terrified animals break their halters and scatter across the grounds, their manes catching fire, creating infernal creatures that trample everything in their path. Old Alinardo of Grottaferrata is knocked down by the magnificent horse Brunellus, haloed by fire, and dragged in the dust. The forges and the novices' house also catch fire. The abbey is doomed. William and Adso, having saved only their traveling sacks, watch from an open space as the church burns slowly and the Aedificium, its top floor already destroyed, continues to blaze. William declares that the greatest library in Christendom is lost, and that now the Antichrist is truly at hand, because no learning will hinder him any more. He sees in Jorge's face, deformed by hatred of philosophy, the portrait of the Antichrist, who can be born from piety itself, from excessive love of truth.

Aftermath and Reflection

The abbey burns for three days and three nights. By the morning of the seventh day, the survivors realize no building can be saved. The church swallows its tower, and the chapter house and the abbot's apartments burn. The servants save what objects they can and recapture some livestock. Men from the village come to lend a hand or to snatch booty. The dead remain among the still-red-hot ruins. On the third day, the wounded are treated, the corpses found outside are buried, and the monks and others collect their belongings and abandon the still-smoking abbey as a place accursed. William and Adso leave on two horses found astray in the wood. Years later, Adso returns to the site and finds only scattered ruins, ivy-covered walls, and weeds. The Aedificium's south wall is in ruins, but the two outer towers over the cliff seem untouched, though all windows are empty sockets. Everything not green with moss is still black from the smoke of so many decades ago. Adso pokes about in the rubble, finding scraps of parchment that survived like treasures buried in the earth. He collects every relic he can find, filling two traveling sacks. At Melk, he spends many hours trying to decipher the remains, reconstructing a kind of lesser library made up of fragments, quotations, and unfinished sentences. He concludes that the more he rereads this list, the more he is convinced it is the result of chance and contains no message, and that he no longer knows whether the letter he has written contains any hidden meaning, or more than one, or many, or none at all.