Clare of Montefalco

Clare of Montefalco is a deceased holy woman of the Augustinian order, venerated by Ubertino of Casale as a celestial messenger and a vessel of divine grace. In the novel, she never appears alive; her presence is entirely mediated through Ubertino's impassioned recollections and the contested history of her cult. She becomes a symbolic battleground between Ubertino's fervent, visionary faith and William of Baskerville's skeptical, rationalist critique of the means by which her sanctity was established and defended.

Identity and Veneration

Ubertino describes Clare as one of three women who were "celestial messengers" in his life, alongside Angela of Foligno and Margaret of Città di Castello. He credits her with revealing the end of his book, the Arbor vitae crucifixae, when he had written only a third of it. Ubertino claims that he himself investigated her miracles and proclaimed her sainthood to the crowds before the official church did, a task he undertook with fierce devotion. He speaks of her with a radiant, almost eroticized intensity, calling her a "marvelous woman" and recalling how he was cured of his ailments through her intercession. For Ubertino, Clare represents the sublime potential of female nature, which he believes can become "the noblest vehicle of grace" when purified by holiness.

The Conflict Over Her Memory

The central dramatic function of Clare of Montefalco is to expose the irreconcilable rift between Ubertino and William. William directly challenges Ubertino's role in the trial of Bentivenga, Jacomo, and Giovannuccio, whom Ubertino had denounced as heretics and "Pseudo Apostles" who were "besmirching her memory with their perversions." William reveals that he was the inquisitor in that case and that he asked to be relieved of his position precisely because he disapproved of the proceedings. He accuses Ubertino of having pretended to join Bentivenga's sect in order to steal his secrets and have him arrested. Ubertino defends this as the proper way to proceed against the enemies of Christ, but William insists that the accused were "Clare's friends" and that the step between ecstatic vision and sinful frenzy is very brief. This exchange crystallizes the novel's central moral dilemma: the difficulty of distinguishing authentic holiness from heretical excess, and the danger of using inquisitorial deceit to defend a truth one holds absolute.

The Accusations Against Her Associates

Ubertino, in his defense of Clare's purity, recounts the lurid accusations made against Bentivenga and his followers. He claims they seduced nuns, denied hell, and engaged in ritualistic orgies, including the murder of a newborn child whose body was mixed with flour to make blasphemous hosts. William counters that these exact accusations were made centuries earlier against the Paulicians and the Bogomils, implying that they are recycled slanders rather than factual reports. He argues that under torture, a person says not only what the inquisitor wants but also what he imagines might please him, creating a diabolical bond between torturer and victim. William concludes that he gave up being an inquisitor because he lacked the courage to investigate the weaknesses of the wicked, having discovered they are the same as the weaknesses of the saintly. Clare of Montefalco thus stands at the center of a debate about the reliability of confessions extracted under duress and the ease with which the machinery of heresy-hunting can be turned against the innocent.

Thematic Significance

Clare of Montefalco functions as a test case for the novel's exploration of the relationship between sanctity, heresy, and the will to power. Ubertino's love for her is presented as a pure, mystical ardor, yet it is the same ardor that drives him to destroy those he perceives as her defilers. William's skepticism does not deny Clare's holiness but questions the human instruments that claim to protect it. The character thus embodies the novel's central paradox: that the most fervent love of God can produce the most ruthless cruelty toward man, and that the line between the saint and the inquisitor is terrifyingly thin. Her memory, like the forbidden book of Aristotle, becomes a prize to be fought over, a truth that men are willing to kill and die for, and in that willingness, the novel suggests, lies the seed of the Antichrist.