Was the Abbey a set or real?

Uh! I think he did! Go to the URL (web site) that he cited: You'll see a picture of a structure that would be familiar to anyone who have seen this film. That website also says that the "Castel" (built by Emperor Frederick II) is "unique". However, unless the picture shows the "Castel" sitting behind a ridge (instead of on a hilltop), I think that most of the exterior shots were of a set. If the picture on the UNESCO site is of a building on a hilltop, then the "Castel" is only 2 or 3 stories tall, whereas (in the movie) the library stacks appeared to be 5 or 6 stories. Regardless, if you watch the movie again, at the beginning [where the Narrator (Adso as an old man) says,"...to relive the past and revive the feelings of uneasiness that oppressed my heart as we entered the battlements...] the shot of the abbey is from the same angle the picture of the "Castel" was shot.

I am interested in the discussion that the look of the Aedificium which houses the library in the abbey was inspired by Castel del Monte. It certainly has a similar look but I can not find a lot of references confirming the inspiration. I definitely don't believe any exterior shots were filmed at Castel del Monte, or any other buildings in other locations were used in the film. All evidence suggests that the exterior shots of the buildings were filmed entirely on the constructed set.

The only references I have found for Castel del Monte being an inspiration to Eco are cited in the wikipedia page for Castel del Monte. One is a website, in-italia.com - a website for holiday homes in Italy, which states "The description of the library in the tower in Umberto Eco’s “Name of the Rose” clearly owes much to Castel del Monte". The other is a book that I have not heard of before and will be eager to seek out, by Adele Hart and Robert White, The Key to The Name of the Rose (1999).

Jean-Jacques Annaud does not mention in the DVD commentary that Castel del Monte was an inspiration for the film (instead he cites scouting several hundred locations around Europe and, in a 2004 special feature on the DVD "Photo Video Journey with Jean Jacques Annaud", that he was inspired by German Romantic paintings of monasteries in alpine settings).

I have a copy of Umberto Eco's Reflections on the Name of the Rose (1983, English translation 1984) which mentions the early gestation of the story having considered first that it be set in a modern convent, then changing to the Middle Ages, then having to use a 14th Century time period to include the papal debates over poverty and the discussions of the Fraticelli, also wanting his investigator to be English - a Franciscan and with qualities that would be evident post Roger Bacon, then wanting a November time period so that Michael of Cesena would still be in Italy for the debates, and therefore needing a monastary in the mountains where it would be cold enough for pig slaughtering to have started as early as November(thus allowing a monk to be found in a jar of pigs' blood to conform with the second trumpet of the Apocalypse), wanting a library with a labyrinth and with enough air circulation so that a fire would be the culmination of the story, etc etc. But sadly Eco never mentions Castel del Monte as an inspiration in this book.

Annaud in the film commentary does confirm that all exterior shots of the abbey were filmed at the specially constructed set outside of Rome. I have never heard the exact location but he does state it was a hill on private land in the countryside just outside of Rome. In the 2004 Photo video Journey he says it was about 10 kilometres from Rome. Also on my DVD is a German Documentary about the making of the film which states the location was "at the gates of Rome" and at a location just north of Rome near a northern arterial road from Rome. Annaud says in the commentary that it amuses him that many people claim to have visited the abbey where he shot these exteriors assuming it to have been a real historic location in some part of Italy or France. He says almost all exterior shots were on the set outside of Rome. Annaud does state he did scout hundreds of historic locations before deciding to build his set and this is probably where many of the rumours started. The establishing shots of the scenery around the fictious abbey were filmed in the Abruzzo around L'Aquila about 150kms from Rome but all the shots of buildings were on the set.

Annaud does state in the DVD commentary that the establishing shot of the abbey from a distance seen in the first scenes of the film (and a few times later on) was the "only visual effect in the movie". So it was not a shot of Castel del Monte, or even a castle in the Abruzzo, but a glass painting put in front of the camera with a little house on a hill in the distance to give the impression we were seeing the tower of the Aedificium from a long way off. I believe this visual effect shot was done in Abruzzo rather than on the set outside Rome.

Many of the interior shots for the abbey, such as the scriptorium and the interior of the church, were at Kloster Eberbach in Germany. Annaud states on the DVD commentary that William and Adso's room while staying in the abbey was a small set built on the main set outside Rome, as indeed was part of the Infirmary for a few scenes. The German Making of Documentary states the staircases of the labyrinth was a set at the Cinecitta studios in Rome. The rooms of the library were also a set at Cinecitta as were the settings for some other scenes, such as where William shows the invisible writing on the parchment to the abbot.