David Flusfeder’s novel John the Pupil has been repeatedly compared to Umberto Eco’s fiction. The similarity is definitely there. The story is about John a young Franciscan monk in 1267 Oxford studying under the English philosopher Roger Bacon (Bacon also gets a couple of mentions in Name of the Rose if I remember rightly). John is tasked with making a pilgrimage to the Viterbo Italy where the Pope is in residence.