The name of ours

I would like to think that this beautiful April of 2026, while the media and social networks repeatedly recreate the confrontation between Emperor Trump and Pope Leo, some readers have remembered – perhaps with a nostalgic smile – the pages ofThe Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Not exactly because reality imitates fiction, but because, from time to time, history rehashes old episodes with new actors and modern settings. The clash between secular power and spiritual power, which in the 14th century spread throughout Europe, is now resurfacing in the form of heated statements and truculent memes; despite their contemporary appearance, some have a medieval aroma. In Umberto Eco's novel, Emperor Louis of Bavaria and Pope John XXII fight for legitimacy, for who can tell the truth and by what right can they do so. Caught in the midst of incompatible loyalties, the monks in Eco's novel become witnesses and victims of a struggle that was not only political, but also linguistic: whoever controls the word, controls the world. In that book, the word inhabited a labyrinthine monastic library; today, it is hard to understand amidst the media noise. The conflict between Trump and Pope Leo unfolds in a very different setting – confusing press conferences, social networks, shifting speeches – but the underlying question is surprisingly similar. Who has the moral authority to interpret the present, be it that of the Strait of Hormuz or that of devastated Gaza? Who can claim the final word on community, faith, nation, identity, or that very truth which has the bad habit of making us free?Transformed by many of his followers into a kind of Nero-esque imperial figure, Trump acts as a sovereign who tolerates no limits or criticism of his all-encompassing power. Pope Leo reclaims the Church as a counterweight, as a reminder that there are values that cannot be subordinated to any political will. Between the two opens a space of tension that recalls the labyrinth of Eco's imaginary library: a place where each corridor leads to a different interpretation, where truth is always partial, and where books –or televised speeches, or tweets, or memes– can become weapons of massive epistemological destruction. The comparison with the 14th century is not just a literary metaphor. Both then and now, the conflict was not limited to two personal figures in confrontation, but spread like an oil stain throughout society: this polarization didn't start the day before yesterday... Communities also divided, and the –let's call them– intellectuals who took the wrong side ended up in the dungeon. Rumors circulated with the same force –though not at the same speed, obviously– as official decrees. And, as in The Name of the Rose, the dispute over power ended up contaminating daily life, making every gesture, every word, or even every silence acquire a political meaning, generally over-interpreted.

Perhaps the most unsettling lesson of this analogy is that, despite the centuries that have passed, we remain trapped in the same dialectic: a political authority that wants to impose itself and a spiritual authority that wants to limit it; the temptation of unchecked power and the resistance of another that has no drones or tanks, but does have principles maintained for 2,000 years. Eco suggested that, in this combat, knowledge is the true battlefield.This April 2026, as the world watches the verbal struggle between the emperor and the Holy Father, it seems that history confirms, once again, the old rule. Deep down, the parallelism is not only historical but also narrative. Both in the 14th century and in our present, the conflict between secular and spiritual power becomes, in effect, a story about institutional fragility, about the need for a minimally clear collective direction, and also about the fear that any authority arouses when it seeks to be absolute. It is for all these reasons that this April I have evoked the erudite irony that characterized Umberto Eco. Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus. The primeval rose remains in the name, we only have naked names. I read The Name of the Rose when I was in my first year of university, and it impressed me (it is a more difficult text than it seems, and fitting it into a film was impossible). For a character like Trump, culture is the name of the nuisance, and Saint George, should he know of him, might seem to him an intolerable act of massive subversion.