The Creation of Abulafia
This article explores the intersection of literature and computing through the lens of Umberto Eco's novel 'Foucault’s Pendulum'. It discusses the author's inclusion of a BASIC program used by characters to permute divine names.
Why it matters
It provides a cultural and historical perspective on how early computing concepts were integrated into classic literature.
In 1988, Umberto Eco published Foucault’s Pendulum . In it, three editors at a Milan publishing house (Belbo, Diotallevi, and Casaubon) spend their working days on manuscripts by people they privately call the Diabolicals, self-financing occultists who have discovered that the Templars, the Rosicrucians, the Jesuits, the Cathars, and the pyramids are all the same thing wearing different hats 1 .
I read it in 2020, stuck at home, and marvelled at Eco’s vast knowledge of literature, the occult, and also of computing.
Belbo owns a personal computer he calls Abulafia , after a thirteenth-century kabbalist whose practice was permuting the letters of the divine names. Belbo, being a modern man, does it in BASIC, because despite what he and his colleagues might say, they are a curious bunch. Eco even gives the listing for the first program Belbo writes:
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