Photo of Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco - Order of Merit of the Italian Republic - (Alexandria, January 5, 1932 - Milan, February 19, 2016) was an internationally renowned Italian writer, philosopher, semiologist, linguist and bibliophile. He held the chair of Semiotics and director of the School of Human Sciences at the University of Bologna. He taught temporarily at Yale, Columbia University, Harvard, Collège de France and University of Toronto.