Fra Dolcino
Fra Dolcino was the leader of the Apostolic Brethren, a heretical movement that terrorized the regions of Novara and Vercelli in the early years of the fourteenth century. His story, as recounted by Ubertino of Casale to Adso and later read by Adso in a manuscript, serves as a dark mirror to the theological debates on poverty that convulse the abbey. Dolcino represents the point at which the yearning for evangelical purity, shared by the Spiritual Franciscans, tips into armed rebellion, sexual license, and apocalyptic violence, a transformation that haunts the abbey's own recent crimes.
Origins and Rise of the Apostolic Brethren
Dolcino was a priest's bastard from the Novara diocese, educated in letters but driven by a restless spirit. After stealing from the priest who housed him, he fled eastward to Trent, where he resumed the preaching of Gherardo Segarelli, the founder of the Apostolic Brethren, who had been burned as an impenitent heretic at the beginning of the century. In Trent, Dolcino seduced—or was seduced by—a very beautiful maiden of noble family, Margaret, whom Ubertino describes as the vessel through which the Devil penetrates men's hearts. Driven from Trent by the bishop, Dolcino gathered more than a thousand followers and began a long march back to his native region, joined along the way by Waldensian heretics and other deluded folk. When he reached the Novara region, he found a situation favorable to his revolt: the vassals of the Bishop of Vercelli had been driven out by the populace, who welcomed Dolcino's outlaws as allies.
Doctrine and the Descent into Violence
Dolcino's doctrine, expounded in letters to his followers, was a radicalized version of Joachimite prophecy. He identified four ages in the history of God's people, the last of which required the extermination of all clergy, monks, and friars—including the Pope himself—by an emperor he had chosen, Frederick of Sicily. He declared the Roman church a whore, denied the validity of sacraments from impure priests, and proclaimed that only his sect represented the true church. Ubertino insists that Dolcino's followers lived in shameful promiscuity, that he himself appointed Margaret and other lieutenants, and that his letters sustained theories that could not be reconciled with orthodoxy. The movement, now three thousand strong, camped on Bald Mountain near Novara, building hovels and fortifications, and from there sacked villages in the valley, raiding for provisions and waging outright war against nearby towns. The winter of 1305 was one of the harshest in decades; famine drove the rebels to eat the flesh of horses and other animals, and many died.
The Crusade and the End
The Bishop of Vercelli appealed to Pope Clement V, who proclaimed a crusade against the heretics, granting plenary indulgence to anyone who took part. Louis of Savoy, the inquisitors of Lombardy, and the Archbishop of Milan were prompt to act. After a series of clashes, Dolcino was forced to abandon Bald Mountain, leaving behind the wounded and ill, and entrenched himself on a mountain called Zubello, later known as Rubello or Rebello, because it had become the fortress of the rebels. The crusaders eventually captured the stronghold. Dolcino, Margaret, and his lieutenant Longinus were taken into the city of Biella and handed over to the bishop. Pope John XXII, writing to King Philip of France, called Dolcino "that pestiferous demon, son of Belial, the most horrendous heresiarch." On the first day of July 1307, the heretics were handed over to the secular arm. As the bells of the city rang joyously, they were placed in a wagon and carried through the entire city; at every corner, men with red-hot pincers tore the flesh of the guilty. Margaret was burned first, before Dolcino, who did not move a muscle of his face. He underwent other torments and remained silent, though when they amputated his nose he shrugged a bit, and when they tore off his male member he emitted a long sigh, like a groan. His last words sounded impertinent, for he warned that he would rise on the third day. Then he was burned and his ashes were scattered in the wind.
Narrative Role and Thematic Significance
Fra Dolcino functions as the historical embodiment of the danger that Jorge of Burgos and the abbot fear: the transformation of a spiritual ideal into a violent, world-destroying force. His story is the extreme case that the abbey's debates on poverty and laughter are meant to contain. The cellarer Remigio of Varagine and Salvatore, both former followers of Dolcino, carry his shadow into the abbey, and their past is the weapon Bernard Gui uses to destroy the Franciscan position. Dolcino's rebellion, with its carnivalesque inversion of order and its ultimate consumption by fire, prefigures the abbey's own destruction. Adso's horrified fascination with Dolcino—and his inability to distinguish between the steadfastness of a martyr and the arrogance of the damned—mirrors his own confusion about the nature of love, sin, and truth. Dolcino is the ghost that will not be exorcised, the proof that the line between saint and heretic, between the desire for purity and the lust for destruction, is terrifyingly thin.
