The Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose, has died aged 84.
His family says he passed away late on Friday at his home. No further details were given.
The Name of the Rose was made into a film in 1986 starring Scottish actor Sean Connery.
Eco, who also wrote the novel Foucault's Pendulum, continued to publish new works, with Numero Zero released last year.
He also wrote children's books and literary criticism.
Eco once wrote that "books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told".
This is why I like books. Especially his ones. The quote in my sig line is there from my first day on here, 2007.10.18 ...
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco - To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
Sorry for the incidental bad wording; I google-translated this from Italian.
The will of Umberto Eco: "For 10 years you do not speak to me"
BOLOGNA - They gathered Saturday, students and colleagues, to remember. And to decide how to remember it a year from now, with an international conference in universities. The same Rector had given them carte blanche. But Umberto Eco has once again managed to blow them away. An hour before the meeting, the Higher School of Humanities, the Renate wife called Patrizia Violi, intellectual heir of the semiotician: "In his will, he asks us, to me and to our children, not to promote or authorize conferences on him to 10 years". Disoriented, lost, then almost amused by the "joke" posthumous their master ("when we told him we gave him weight, she did it for real, hell of a teacher"), his closest collaborators have obviously had doubts : will respect his wishes.
"Brilliant idea". Although it will be hard that the "wind" Eco is then observed in the world. And if someone will make a conference in New York or university Rio Grande do Sul, in Brazil, where he received one of 40 honorary degrees? "We will not do conferences and participate if there will be organized by other, in ten years we will think those who come after us," Bolognese academic promise. "In his will we recognized the irony of our paw professor who did not want to be mummified and a monument," notes Constantine Marble, now president of the School of Humanities. A will, the Eco, which includes Patrizia Violi: "Personally I think a choice in its style and right, a brilliant idea. He wanted to avoid the mass of circumstantial conferences and invite us to reflect more long-term, weighted. Yes, every now and then he said that he would not want to study days dedicated to him. But now there are his wishes: an invitation to those who wanted to make conventions, albeit with good intentions and to honor him, to stop. the same rector there had asked at this point we do not. we will stick to this desire. "
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco - To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
Red rose growing in the meadow, you vaunt yourself bravely bathed in crimson and carmine: a rich and fragrant show. But no: Being fair, You will be unhappy soon
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires...seek discipline and find your liberty I can tell if a person is judgmental just by looking at them what is chaos to the fly is normal to the spider - morticia addams If you're not upsetting idiots, you might be an idiot. - Ted Nugent