The television adaption of Umberto Eco’s best selling novel, The Name of the Rose, comes to the small screen today. The series debuts 30 years after Jean-Jacques Annaud’s film. The pilot episode is set in 1327, and begins with a blood medieval battle. Adso da Melk, played by Damian Hardung, appears as the apprentice of the Franciscan friar-cum-detective, William Baskerville played by John Turturro.

A friar investigates a series of mysterious deaths in a 14th-century Italian monastery, and the characters travel through Lazio, Umbria, and Abruzzo, in the episodes. Directed by the revered Italian filmmaker Giacomo Battiato, The Name of the Rose is an Italian-German co-production of 11 Marzo Film, Palomar and Tele München Gruppe.