His legacy is immense, from the Phenomenology of Mike Bongiorno to the aesthetics of Saint Thomas Aquinas, from The Name of the Rose to Numero zero. Umberto Eco, Italy's most famous professor, a great observer of Italy, its language and its vices — not only linguistic ones — has died at the age of 84.
Farewell, Umberto Eco. Italy and the world have lost another great mind, one of the most important writers and semioticians of our time. Confirmation of the death of the author of The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum was given by his family to La Repubblica. He passed away at 10:30 pm last night, at his home.
Born in Alessandria on 5 January 1932, Umberto Eco was a semiotician, professor and writer. For many years he held the degree course in Communication Studies at the University of Bologna. In 1988 he had founded the Department of Communication at the University of San Marino. From 2008 he was emeritus professor and president of the Scuola Superiore di Studi Umanistici at the University of Bologna.
As a semiotician and essayist he conducted research in multiple directions — on the history of aesthetics, on avant-garde poetics, on mass communications — beginning with Il problema estetico in San Tommaso (1956), Sviluppo dell'estetica medievale (1959), Opera aperta (1962), Apocalittici e integrati (1964), La definizione dell'arte (1968), Le forme del contenuto (1971).
It would be impossible to list his works, merits and awards. Let us focus here on just four milestones from his extraordinarily long and prolific cultural life.
This is a collection of short essays published by Umberto Eco in 1963, by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. It contains brief essays that — partly through gymnastic virtuosity, partly through play, partly through provocation — lead us to a deeper reflection on certain notions that had lazily been taken for granted. Among these exercises in intellectual irreverence are L'Elogio di Franti, Fenomenologia di Mike Bongiorno, an analysis of I promessi sposi as though it were the latest work by Joyce, and all the other chapters of the book. This collection was followed in 1992 by Il secondo diario minimo.
A historical novel set in the Middle Ages, published in 1980 by Bompiani, it is the first work of fiction by the distinguished semiotician. Divided into seven days, each subdivided according to the canonical hours, it achieved extraordinary commercial success and has been translated into many languages. The story, which Eco imagines he has drawn from an ancient manuscript, unfolds during the last week of November 1327 and is narrated in the first person by the Benedictine novice Adso, who accompanies the Franciscan William of Baskerville, an imperial theologian and organiser of the diplomatic meeting between representatives of the Avignon curia and the pro-imperial Franciscans. In the Benedictine abbey hosting the meeting, however, several monks die under mysterious circumstances, and William is tasked with uncovering the culprit, amid the heretical pasts of some monks and the unhealthy passions of others. A film adaptation was also made in 1986, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud.
This is a wonderfully witty column that began on the back page of L'Espresso in March 1985 and continued on a weekly basis until March 1998, when it became fortnightly. Here Eco ranged from reflections on the contemporary world to Italian society, the press, the fate of the book in the internet age, through to some cautious predictions about the third millennium and a series of "amusements" or short pieces. The collection gives meaning to the column which, as the title suggests, was intended to gather those occasional and often extravagant notes that one sometimes jots down on the inside of those matchboxes known in Italy as "minerva". The pieces were also selected and collected in a book published by Bompiani, and the column was revived online until January 2016 on the L'Espresso website.
A lifetime with Bompiani, then — until the end. His last book, published in 2015, was Numero Zero, released by Bompiani. A novel set in 1992, it tells the story of an imaginary newspaper editorial team, with strong references to Italy's political, journalistic, judicial and conspiracy-laden history, from Tangentopoli to Gladio, by way of P2 and left-wing terrorism. It was also the last book he published with his long-standing publisher, which he left after it passed under the control of Segrate. It was on 24 November last year that he decided, together with Sandro Veronesi, Hanif Kureishi and Tahar Ben Jelloun, to follow Elisabetta Sgarbi into a new venture: the new publishing house La nave di Teseo.
And it is from this last vessel that the farewell to Umberto Eco has come: "La nave di Teseo salutes its captain. Thank you, Umberto."
An unpublished book is due out from La nave di Teseo itself: Pape Satàn Aleppe. It had been due to come out with Bompiani at the end of 2015. A dedicated entry for booksellers and bookshops already exists, carrying statements by Eco. "Since 1985 I have been publishing 'La Bustina di Minerva' in L'Espresso," he wrote. "Many of the pieces were collected in 'Il Secondo Diario Minimo' and then in 'La bustina di Minerva'. From 2000 to the present a great many remained, and I have selected those that could refer to the phenomenon of 'liquid society' and its symptoms: the collapse of ideologies, of memories, of the communities with which to identify, the emphasis on appearance, etc. 'Cronache di una società liquida' is the subtitle, but given the variety of themes that cannot be unified under a single slogan-like expression, the title will be 'Pape Satán Aleppe', an obviously Dantesque quotation that means nothing and is therefore sufficiently 'liquid' to characterise the confusion of our times."
