Umberto Eco was an Italian essayist, philosopher, novelist and literary critic, known for his pioneering novel ‘The Name of the Rose’
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Umberto Eco was an Italian essayist, philosopher, novelist and literary critic, known for his pioneering novel ‘The Name of the Rose’
Umberto Eco born at
In 1962, Eco got married to Renate Ramge who was a German art teacher. They both had two children together, a son and a daughter.
Umberto Eco died of pancreatic cancer on February 19, 2016, at the age of 84.
Umberto Eco was born on January 5, 1932 in Alessandria, in the Piedmont region in the northern Italy. His father, Giulio, was an accountant by profession and served in three wars in his lifetime and his mother, Giovanna, during those years moved with Eco to Piedmontese.
Eco’s father wanted him to become a lawyer but he took up medieval philosophy and literature from the University of Turin and wrote thesis on Thomas Aquinas, and earned his Laurea in philosophy in the year of 1954.
After finishing his studies at the University of Turin, Eco worked as a cultural editor at the state broadcasting station called the Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI). Around the same time, he kept lecturing at the Turin University, as a guest lecturer.
In 1956, his first book called ‘II problema estetico in San Tommaso’was published. The book was an extension of his doctoral thesis, which was influenced by many artists, writers, musicians and painters that he was friends with at RAI.
In 1959, his second book ‘Sviluppo dell’estetica medieval (The Development of Medieval Aesthetics)’ was published. This book made him renowned as a prolific thinker of medieval philosophy.
In 1959, he became the senior non-fiction editor at the Bompiani publishinh house, Milan.
In 1962, his essay called ‘Opera aperta (The Open Work)’ was published. He professed in his work that literature is limiting and gives you a unidirectional meaning of life and art, which makes it a closed text while essays and open texts are more open to individual meaning and understanding.
He had a vacation home in Urbino and an apartment in Milan and had a library in his apartment that had at least 30,000 books in it.
He hoften teamed up with his friend Dr. Thomas A. Sebeok on many of his works, lectures and novels.
He was a member of the Italian skeptic organization CICAP.