“ | You dare to raise your hand to the Church? | „ |
~ Bernardo Gui, intimidating rebellious peasants |
Bernardo Gui is the secondary antagonist of the 1986 film The Name of the Rose, based on the 1980 novel of the same name written by Umberto Eco.
He is an inquisitor of the Roman Catholic Church who secretly serves as a torturer and interrogator. Gui is tasked with finding Salvatore and Remigio guilty of heresy.
He was portrayed by Academy Award winning actor F. Murray Abraham, who also played Omar Suarez in Scarface, Antonio Salieri in the 1984 Amadeus film adaptation, Ahdar Ru'afo in Star Trek: Insurrection, Cyrus Kriticos in Thirteen Ghosts, Grimmel the Grisly in How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Khonshu in Moon Knight and The Traveler in Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities.
Biography[]
A religious zealot, Bernardo Gui condemned scores of people to death for the smallest sin or slightest deviation from his puritanical reading of Scripture. He clashed with Brother William of Baskerville, who believed that the goal of the Inquisition was to guide the faithful. William acquitted a man whose only crime was translating a book from Greek that conflicted with Scripture. Gui overruled William and had the man burned at the stake. Gui then accused William of heresy for having defending the man. Despite William's appeals to the Pope, Gui had William imprisoned and tortured until William recanted. William was later released from prison.
During the early 14th century, Gui was sent to a Benedictine Abbey in northern Italy to attend a conference there. The abbey had been the site of several murders, and Gui was chomping at the bit to take care of the problem. Gui had a peasant girl, a hunchback named Salvatore, and a monk named Remigio da Varagine arrested and brought before a tribunal. Gui intimidated the Abbot into agreeing with his verdict, and when William would not do the same Gui detained him, intending to take him to Avignon and answer to the Pope.
Meanwhile the three people Gui had arrested were tied to stakes, and had started them on fire. Salvatore and Remigio were burned to death, while the peasant girl was later freed by area villagers when a fire broke out in the abbey library. Gui tried to escape in his wagon, but a group of angry villagers pushed it over. Gui fell off the cliff and was impaled on the wagon's spokes.