Biography

He is a professor of semiotics, the study of communication through signs and symbols, at the University of Bologna. Also a philiosopher, a historian, literary critic, and an aesthetician. He is an avid book collector and owns more than 30,000 volumes. The subjects of his scholarly investigations range from St. Thomas Aquinas, to James Joyce, to Superman. He lives in Milan.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

After finishing school, he obtained a university degree from the University of Turin in 1954. His master's thesis was about the teaching of aesthetics by Thomas Aquinas. This volume was published in 1956 under the title "The Question of Aesthetics in Saint Thomas". Eco then worked as a cultural editor at the state television station RAI from 1954 to 1959. In the 1960s he taught at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Milan and then at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Florence before Eco finally worked at the Polittechnikum in Milan. Meanwhile, Eco became a member of "Group 63," in whose circle he made a name for himself as a theorist. He worked as a senior editor at the Bompiani publishing house from 1959 to 1975. He was then appointed professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna in 1975. Here he founded his own school. From 1976 to 1977 and from 1980 to 1983, Eco headed the "Institute for Communication and Drama" at the University of Bologna.

Umberto Eco was awarded over 30 honorary doctorates from various universities, where he also held seminars. In 1989 he became president of the "International Center for Semiotic and Cognitive Studies" and in 1994 honorary president of the "International Association for Semiotic Studies". In addition to his academic work, Eco worked for UNESCO, the Milan Triennale, the EXPO 1967 in Montreal, the "Fondation Européenne de la Culture" and numerous other organizations and academies. Umberto Eco has conducted research in various disciplines. These included subjects such as the history of aesthetics, the poetics of the avant-garde, mass communication and the culture of consumption. His essays covered areas from medieval aesthetics to semiotics and codes of artistic communication. Umberto Eco wrote for numerous daily newspapers and magazines such as "Il Giorno", "La Stampa", "Il Corriere della Sera", "La Repubblica", "Il Manifesto" "L'Espresso", in which his famous and popular matchbooks were published .

Eco also worked as an author for well-known art and science magazines such as "Quindici" and "Il Verri". In 1980, Umberto Eco's successful novel "The Name of the Rose" was published, which found a large audience and was made into a film in 1986 with Sean Connery in the leading role. The story "The Library of Babel" inspired Eco to write this novel. Williams' blind opponent of Baskerville, Jorge of Burgos, was his homage to Jorge Luis Borges. The film adaptation also gave him his international breakthrough, after which he became one of the most widely read novelists of today. The following novels such as "The Foucault Pendulum", "The Island of the Last Day" and "Baudolino" also became bestsellers, building on the book success of "The Name of the Rose". In 1999, Eco was appointed president of the "Institute for Higher Humanistic Studies" at the University of Bologna.

On October 14, 2003, he was awarded the official title of "Legion d'Honneur" by French President Jacques Chirac. The publication of his novel "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana" became a central event in Italian literature in 2004. In the fall of 2007 he stopped teaching. The first biography "Life and Work" about him was published in April 2010.

Umberto Eco died on February 19, 2016 in Milan as a result of cancer.
- IMDb mini biography by: Christian_Wolfgang_Barth

[When asked if he was working on another novel after the publication of Numero Zero] My books are usually written six years from one to the other. It was eight years for Foucault's Pendulum. So we will have to talk again when I am 90.

I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us.