Filosofi, filosofe, medici e guaritrici in alcuni romanzi storici medievali

The genre of medieval crime fiction took off (from the point of view of both quantity and quality of the books) from the beginning of the 1980s, thanks to the novels of Ellis Peters (A Morbid Taste for Bones, 1977) and especially by Umberto Eco (The name of the rose, 1980). Since then, more than 150 authors have proposed criminal investigation stories set in the Middle Ages. In this article we will examine some interesting cases that straddle medieval historical novel and medieval crime fiction, in which the authors have resorted to characters (historical or purely fictional) engaged in various capacities in philosophy, theology or medicine. In particular, both the descriptions of their physical aspect and their actantial and narrative roles will be analyzed.