Rather than inviting the reader in by advertising its contents, the manuscript has mysterious features that work to conceal its true nature, such that when William of Baskerville sees the book in the infirmary, he doesn’t realize what he is looking at until it is too late. In all, it is a book that seems to not want to be read. This book is shrouded in many layers of secrecy and obscurity: it is concealed in a hidden room in the library, the finis Africae it is a composite volume of several works including a text in Arabic, making it a challenge to interpret it is written on linen paper, a new and still somewhat unfamiliar technology in medieval Italy and most disturbingly of all, its pages have been contaminated with poison. Jorge of Burgos orchestrated the deaths of five of his fellow monks in order to protect the secrecy of a single book-a book that comes to symbolize the dangers of forbidden knowledge.
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