![]() ![]() ![]() It is this war, with Louis’s armies advancing towards Rome, which is the immediate setting for the novel, the narrator Adso’s own father being among the imperial supporters. Louis responded by invading Italy, “deposing” the pope, and setting up his own anti-pope. John’s intention was to restore papal authority in Italy, and to that end he sided with Louis IV’s rival and ultimately declared Louis himself excommunicated. ![]() However, the first electoral consistory following that move, also in 1314, dragged on over two years, amidst a great deal of intrigue and even threats of violence against the cardinals, until in 1316 it elected a Frenchman who chose the name John XXII. In 1314 a disputed imperial election produced two claimants to the throne, one of whom, Louis of Bavaria (Louis IV), triumphed over his rival within a few years. The immediate context is a particularly fierce episode in the perennial medieval conflict between’ he papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. Like the plot of the novel itself, the historical context of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose consists of a number of overlapping circles, related to one another in intricate and subtle ways. ![]()
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