First Day

The First Day of the narrative, late November 1327, begins with the arrival of William of Baskerville and his young novice Adso of Melk at a wealthy Benedictine abbey perched on a mountain in the Apennines. The day immediately establishes William's extraordinary deductive powers. Before even entering the gates, he correctly identifies the abbot's missing horse, Brunellus, by reading the clues in the snow: hoofprints, broken twigs, and horsehairs. This feat of reasoning, which he later explains to Adso as reading the "great book of nature," earns him immediate respect and sets the tone for his role as an investigator. The abbey itself is dominated by the Aedificium, an octagonal fortress that houses the scriptorium and the legendary library, a labyrinthine repository of knowledge that is strictly off-limits to all but the librarian and his assistant.

The First Murder and the Abbot's Commission

Shortly after their arrival, the abbot Abo reveals that a young monk, Adelmo of Otranto, a gifted illuminator, has been found dead at the bottom of the cliff below the Aedificium. The abbot, troubled by the circumstances, commissions William to investigate. William immediately deduces that the windows were closed, ruling out an accidental fall, and that the body was found in a position suggesting it was not a simple suicide. The abbot, while granting William broad authority to question the monks, explicitly forbids him from entering the library's top floor, the library itself, which is guarded by a complex system of prohibitions and secrets. This prohibition immediately becomes the central obstacle in William's investigation.

Encounters with Key Figures

The First Day is rich with introductions to the abbey's complex inhabitants. William meets the blind and formidable Jorge of Burgos, the oldest monk, who condemns the marginal illustrations in Adelmo's psalter as a world turned upside down, a dangerous inversion of God's order. He also encounters the mystic Ubertino of Casale, a former Spiritual Franciscan in hiding, who speaks of the coming Antichrist and warns William of the abbey's hidden sins. The day also includes a conversation with Severinus, the herbalist, who discusses the properties of plants, including those that can induce visions, and a visit to the scriptorium, where William observes the monks at work and learns of a recent debate about laughter and the nature of truth, a debate that involved the now-dead Adelmo and the assistant librarian Berengar of Arundel.

The First Day's Significance

The First Day functions as a masterful exposition, establishing the novel's central mystery, its key characters, and its thematic concerns. It introduces the conflict between reason and faith, the power of books and knowledge, and the tension between the desire for truth and the fear of what that truth might reveal. The day ends with the first of many nocturnal explorations, as William and Adso prepare to navigate the abbey's dark and dangerous secrets, setting the stage for the seven days of investigation that will follow.