Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco was born in Alessandria, in northern Italy, on 5 January 1932, and died on 19 February 2016. He spent most of his working life as a university professor, above all in Bologna, where he taught semiotics, the study of signs and how meaning is made. His scholarly books and essays ranged from medieval aesthetics to mass culture, and he wrote widely for newspapers and magazines as well.

In 1980 he published his first novel, The Name of the Rose, a medieval murder mystery full of learning and play. It made him famous far beyond the university and was followed by other novels that mix history, secret societies, forgery and ideas. Eco matters because he showed that serious thought and popular storytelling can share a page, and because he taught readers to ask how texts, rumours and images shape what we believe.