1) Already answered...
2) The poison was Arsenic, and as mentioned before, it was ingested.
3) No, or at least im not, the character of salvatore spoke, as noted by fra William Baskerville, "all languages and none" (not exact quote), thus because he had learned so many bits of other languages that he had allready forgoten his native language. The main characters in fact talked in English because the movie was produced for an english speaking audience, in fact the characters should be speaking Latin most of the time, the girl spoke Italian because the history takes place in an italian monastery, Fra. William of Baskerville was in fact a british franciscan monk.
4)It was an Armillary Sphere, an astronomical device used in the middle ages.
5) If the scene tooks place afther the arrival of Bernardo Gui, they must be unloading the devices of torture to be used in the interrogations.
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redidea
19 years ago
2) So, he had anticipated that the victim would lick his finger. Now I understand.
4) An Armillary Sphere...that's a new word for me. Thanks!
5) Oh, torture device. That makes sense perfectly.
3) I understand your point but one...why did the director choose to have that peasant girl speak in Italian? Because she is an illiterate girl. The director could have let her speak in English, or in Southern accent. As seen in this movie, socially 'inferior' people are often described in English speaking films as speaking in other languages than American English. While haugty, arrogant, stuck-up characters are often found speaking British English, and no doubt this film is no exception to that rule. To think that the author on whose script this movie is based is Italian!
As a general rule of yours, you don't risk sounding like you're racist. That's why 'inferior' people in movies don't speak in a typical Black English. Instead you have no scruples in letting inferior characters in other languages or accents.
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pathologica
19 years ago
They spoke Italian because it was their native tongue. On top of that there are no principal lines being said by any of the "peasant" characters, including the girl. There was therefore no need to have them speak in English, so out of a sense of authenticity their lines were left in Italian.
I don't think that it was meant to stress that they are "inferior". That was pretty obvious from the beginning; poor rustic folk scrambling to get their hands on scraps thrown out by the wealthier cleric out of "charity", for instance.
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jcmagitacion
19 years ago
2) indeed he anticipated that the victim would lick his finger.... tht's because the very aplication of arsenic to the pages, and the general condition of the book, would make the pages to be very "sticky" hard to manipulate, so the reader must moisten his finger to be able to actually turn a page.
3) You may have a point there, indeed i generally agree, but in this case the director maybe made the nameless girl to speak in a "foreign" languaje to emphasize the fact that Adso did not understand a word of what the girl was saying. In fact the girl should be talking in some form of tuscan dialect... for the italian language appeared a few centuries afther the time of the story.
4) you are perfecly wellcome.
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