Umberto Eco

5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016

Umberto Eco was an Italian medievalist, semiotician and novelist who taught at the University of Bologna. His academic work on semiotics and interpretation included Opera aperta and A Theory of Semiotics. He became internationally known for his novels, beginning with The Name of the Rose in 1980.

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Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Umberto Eco.

Life events

Born in Alessandria, Piedmont, Italy
5 January 1932
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Birth ✓
Completed a doctoral thesis on Thomas Aquinas at the University of Turin
1954

Studied medieval philosophy and aesthetics, graduating in 1954.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Joined the Italian state broadcaster RAI as a cultural editor
1954 – 1959

Worked on cultural programming in Milan, where he met writers of the avant-garde Gruppo 63.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Published Opera aperta (The Open Work)
1962

Argued that literary and artistic texts are fields of possibility completed by the reader.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Married Renate Ramge
1962

The German art teacher and he had two children.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Appointed professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna
1971

Held the chair for decades and founded the university's communication studies programme.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Published his first novel, The Name of the Rose
1980

A murder mystery set in a fourteenth-century Italian monastery that became an international bestseller.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Published Foucault's Pendulum
1988

A novel about three editors who invent a conspiracy theory that takes on a life of its own.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Died in Milan, Italy
19 February 2016

Died at his home of pancreatic cancer at the age of 84.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Death ✓