Born in 1932 in Alessandria (Italy), is a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna. Globally known for his contributions to philosophy, aesthetics, sociocultural theory, history and literary criticism, is the author of twenty works a long research and three great novels, The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum and the Island of the day before. Winner of many prestigious awards and honored with 25 honorary doctorates, Umberto Eco intervened on many occasions in the political arena with acts of protest and boycott, for example in relation to the war against Chechnya. He is founder of the School of Humanistic Studies in Bologna and the International Association of Semiotics.