Biography of Umberto Eco

In the garden of semiology

January 5, 1932
February 19, 2016
Critic, essayist, writer and semiologist Umberto Eco International was born in Alexandria on January 5, 1932. He graduated in 1954, at the age of 22 years, at the University of Turin with a thesis on the aesthetic thought of Thomas Aquinas, later published as a stand-alone volume. Umberto Eco 's career starts at the cultural services of the Rai. Thanks to some friends employees of "double or nothing", these years become the breeding ground for his famous essay-slam Mike Bongiorno, provocatively titled "Phenomenology of Mike Bongiorno" (contained in the equally famous "diary", a collection of Elzevir written for "il Verri", the magazine of Giovanni Anceschi, echoing the exercises by Roland Barthes). In the years ' 60 first teaches at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Milan, then at the Faculty of architecture of Florence University and finally at the Faculty of architecture of Politecnico di Milano.
These are the years of commitment and of artistic Vanguards and semiologist offers his theoretical contribution by joining the so-called Group 63, a current that has taught in every sense (joined, among others, Antonio Porta, Nanni Ballestrini, Edoardo Sanguineti, Alfredo Giuliani, Francesco Leonetti and Angelo Guglielmi). In 1962 came the exploit with a masterpiece of semiology, the ultra-adopted "open work", a fundamental text for understanding the evolution of the science of signs. In the swirl of activity that the protagonist, Umberto Eco also finds time to work at the publishing house Bompiani (from 1959 to 1975), as senior editor, until he was appointed Professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, where he implanted a lively and fierce school.
In the period 1976-77 and 1980-83 directs the Institute of communication disciplines and performing arts, at the University of Bologna. The collection of titles by Umberto Eco is impressive, having been honored by universities around the world, not limited to withdraw an honorary degrees or awards, but even taking popular courses. Since 1989 he has been the President of the International Center for Semiotic and Cognitive Studies, and since 1994 he is Honorary President of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, of which in previous years was General Secretary and vice President. Since 1999 he is also Chairman of the school of Humanities at the University of Bologna.
He collaborated with Unesco, with the Triennale di Milano, with the Expo 1967 in Montreal, and with the Fondation Européenne de la Culture, and with many other organizations, academia, and national and international editorial. Many also are his collaborations, not only with newspapers («the day», «La Stampa», «Corriere della Sera», «La Repubblica», «Manifesto») and downloads ("L'Espresso"), but also in artistic and intellectual periodicals («Fifteen», «Il Verri ", and others). Umberto Eco has conducted investigations in multiple directions: the history of avant-garde Poetics, aesthetics, mass communications, consumer culture ... Ranging from medieval aesthetics to semiotics to various codes of artistic communication, its production non-fiction seems extremely varied and vast.
One cannot forget the success achieved by the best-selling novel "the name of the rose", followed by the equally "blockbusters" Foucault's pendulum "," the island of the day before "and the picaresque novel-medieval" enthralling "narrative that nobody works of Baudolino probably expected of a student of philosophy and a theorist as an echo. His work is 2004 's "the mysterious flame of Queen Loana," a graphic novel inspired by a cartoon of 30.

The last novels by Umberto Eco

In 2010 comes out instead of his sixth novel "Il cimitero di Praga" followed by "episode Zero" in 2015. In 2012 was published a revised version of his first novel "the name of the rose", with a final note with the same echo that, keeping style and narrative structure, intervened to remove repetitions and errors, to modify the system of Latin quotations and the description of the face of the librarian to remove a reference. Umberto Eco dies at age 84 years at his home in Milan on the evening of February 19, 2016, because of a tumor that had struck him two years earlier.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.