Hörspiele · Radyo Tiyatrosu Arşivi

Der Name der Rose 4von4 – Umberto Eco (1986)

April 1, 2026·1 hr 27 min·7 clips

Remigius confesses to being a heretic with Dolcino's sect, unleashing a furious tirade against the Church before being sentenced to burn.

1. The fourth episode of "Der Name der Rose," a four-part German radio drama adaptation of Umberto Eco's 1980 novel, follows William von Baskerville and his novice Adso as the abbey murder investigation reaches its climax. 2. The episode is performed as a radio play with a full cast; William von Baskerville functions as the investigator-narrator surrogate, while Adso provides the retrospective frame as an elderly monk reviewing his manuscript. 3. The core question of the episode is whether William can identify the true murderer before the inquisitorial process convicts the wrong man and before the killer claims additional victims. 4. William examines Severin's wrecked laboratory and discovers the murdered botanicus had been protecting a Greek manuscript that is the common thread connecting all four deaths — Adelmus, Venantius, Berengar, and Severin. 5. The manuscript is identified as a multi-text codex in which a Greek text is bound with an Arabic one, which is why Benno initially failed to recognize it as the correct book. 6. William realizes mid-scene that Severin's death — his skull crushed with an astronomical instrument — corresponds to the fourth trumpet of Revelation, in which the stars are struck, confirming the killer is following an apocalyptic sequence. 7. He maps the prior three deaths to the first three trumpets: Adelmus in ice and snow (first trumpet, hail and fire), Venantius in a barrel of pig's blood (second trumpet, sea turns to blood), Berengar drowned in the bathhouse (third trumpet, rivers poisoned). 8. From this William predicts two more deaths will follow the fifth trumpet (locusts with scorpion stings) and the sixth trumpet (horsemen), and he warns that Malachias the Librarian is now the most likely next victim. 9. The inquisitor Bernard Gui convenes a trial of Remigius the Cellarer, who is forced to confess not only his past as a follower of Fra Dolcino's heretical Apostles but also, under threat of torture, to all four murders he did not commit. 10. Remigius's false confession is an extended monologue in which he attributes each killing to class resentment — envy of Adelmus's youth, hatred of Venantius's learning, contempt for Berengar's access to books — and then describes summoning the devil through a black cat ritual. 11. William comments to Adso that under torture or the threat of torture a person confesses not only what they did but also what they desired or imagined, making the confession a product of the inquisitorial system rather than of truth. 12. Bernard Gui accepts the confession and announces Remigius will be transferred to Avignon for formal trial and burning, presenting his own work as merely a preparatory instrument of truth-finding. 13. Shortly after the trial, Malachias the Librarian dies during Matins — appearing suddenly at his usual seat, swaying, with blackened tongue and blackened fingers on his right hand — despite Remigius being in custody. 14. Benno, who had briefly stolen the Greek manuscript and surrendered it to Malachias in exchange for the librarian post, reveals he handled the manuscript only briefly and could not read it well, which is why he survived. 15. Benno describes the manuscript's pages as unusually moist and soft, the leaves almost impossible to separate — a physical detail that carries specific danger, since the moisture or treatment on the pages appears to be the delivery mechanism for the poison. 16. The subplot of Salvatore, Remigius's old companion from the Dolcinian sect, ends with William noting that Bernard will likely use him as a witness in the Avignon trial, possibly allowing him to escape afterward, since Bernard has no real interest in minor figures. 17. Adso falls asleep during Malachias's funeral service and dreams a grotesque vision in which the unnamed girl he loves is attacked, abused, and dismembered by a sequence of biblical figures — Adam, Noah, Samson, Judas — which William identifies as imagery drawn from the "Cena Cypriani," a medieval parody of scripture. 18. The episode is performed in a densely layered radio drama style with overlapping voices, rapid scene transitions, and a retrospective narrating frame; the tone is scholarly, melancholic, and at moments darkly ironic. 19. Listeners interested in medieval monastic settings, Umberto Eco adaptations, the history of the Inquisition, or German-language radio drama will find this episode compelling. 20. Listeners who have not heard the first three episodes, or who are unfamiliar with the novel, will find the episode difficult to follow without prior context.

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