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At the University of Bologna, in the historic Palazzo Poggi building, a unique library has opened: Umberto Eco's personal books were brought here, with the layout of his study fully recreated.
Umberto Eco was born in 1932 in Alessandria, in northern Italy. World fame came to him through the novels The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, as well as numerous works on philosophy, linguistics, cultural history, and semiotics. The writer died in Milan on February 19, 2016.
Eco's study in Milan held nearly 32 000 books. Before the move, specialists conducted a detailed survey of the book collection in the writer's Milan home: they inventoried every shelf, recording not only the titles and number of editions but also the arrangement of volumes, thematic groupings, and the connections between authors and scholarly disciplines. The order, incidentally, may surprise you in places: Umberto Eco used the principle of "good neighborliness" developed by the art historian Aby Warburg — the most unexpected books may end up side by side, yet such proximity helps generate new ideas and intellectual connections. In the coming months, the collection is expected to be supplemented with books from the writer's country home in Monte Cerignone in the Marche region.
Umberto Eco had close ties with the University of Bologna: from 1971 to 2007 he headed its Department of Semiotics, turning the university into one of the world's leading centers for research on language, signs, and communication. He bequeathed his personal library as a gift to the university, but only on the condition that the books be kept there permanently — and in the established order.
Eco's book collection is a true treasure trove for a researcher. It allows one to see what influenced the writer's work and views, and when: it includes books on philosophy (ancient and medieval), comics, works on semiotics and linguistics, science fiction, detective fiction, studies of the occult, popular literature, volumes on cultural history… A separate portion of the collection consists of materials related to Eco's own output: more than 2,000 editions and translations of his own works in various languages, around 600 books and studies devoted to his work, and a complete run of the journal Linus, of which Eco was one of the founders in 1965.
