Finis Africae
The Finis Africae is the most secret and forbidden room within the abbey's labyrinthine library, a hidden chamber that contains the only known copy of Aristotle's lost second book of the Poetics, a work on comedy and laughter that the blind librarian Jorge of Burgos has guarded for decades through murder and deception. Its existence is the central mystery around which the novel's seven days of crimes revolve, and its discovery and destruction form the climax of the story. The room is not merely a physical location but the symbolic heart of the abbey's conflict between the preservation of knowledge and the fear of its liberating power.
Location and Access
The Finis Africae is located in the south tower of the Aedificium, in the area of the library designated "LEONES" (lions), which houses books considered heretical or false by the library's founders. It is a windowless, heptagonal blind room, one of four such rooms in the library's towers, but unlike the others, it is walled off and inaccessible through normal means. The only entrance is through a hidden door disguised as a large distorting mirror in the adjacent room, which bears the inscription "Super thronos viginti quatuor" ("Upon the twenty-four thrones"). The mechanism to open the mirror door is triggered by pressing the first and seventh letters of the word "quatuor" — the 'q' and the 'r' — a riddle that William of Baskerville solves only on the sixth night, after his novice Adso of Melk inadvertently provides the key by mentioning a grammatical joke about "tertius equi" (the third letter of the word 'equus'). A second, secret entrance exists through a hidden staircase in the ossarium, known only to Jorge, who used it for decades to enter and leave the room unseen.
Contents and Significance
The Finis Africae contains a single, unique volume: a composite codex binding together four texts. The first is an Arabic manuscript of sayings of a fool; the second, a Syriac alchemical treatise; the third, a Latin commentary on the Coena Cypriani; and the fourth, and most important, is a Greek manuscript on linen paper — the only surviving copy of Aristotle's second book of the Poetics. This lost work, which deals with comedy, laughter, and the ridiculous, is the object of the entire murder sequence. Venantius of Salvemec, who knew Greek, stole it from the room after learning of its existence from Berengar of Arundel, and his subsequent poisoning set off a chain of deaths. The room's name, "Finis Africae" ("the End of Africa"), appears in the library catalogue as a collocation mark, and when Benno of Uppsala once asked for a book bearing that indication, Malachi of Hildesheim told him the books with that mark had been lost.
Jorge's Guardianship and the Final Confrontation
For over forty years, Jorge of Burgos has been the sole master of the Finis Africae. After discovering the Aristotle manuscript during a trip to Silos in his native Castile, he stole it, hid it in the secret room, and used his influence over successive librarians — first Robert of Bobbio, then Malachi — to ensure no one else could enter. He believed the book was so dangerous that it could destroy Christian civilization by legitimizing laughter as a philosophical tool, thereby undermining the fear of God that sustains the church's authority. When William and Adso finally enter the room on the seventh night, they find Jorge waiting for them behind a table, the book before him. In the ensuing confrontation, Jorge, realizing he has been defeated, begins tearing the pages from the manuscript and devouring them, saying, "Now I seal that which was not to be said, in the grave I become." In the struggle, a lamp is knocked over, setting fire to the room and ultimately to the entire library. The Finis Africae, along with the book it was built to conceal, is consumed in the flames, and Jorge dies in the fire he himself started.
