Template:POTD/2022-01-05
Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, cultural critic, political and social commentator, and novelist. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel The Name of the Rose, a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory, and Foucault's Pendulum, his 1988 novel that touches on similar themes. This photograph of Eco was taken in 1984, during the period of more than thirty years in which he taught at the University of Bologna.Photograph credit: Rob Bogaerts