Umberto Eco (born 5 January 1932) is an Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, literary critic and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa, 1980), an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory. His 1988 novel Foucault's Pendulum has been described as a "thinking person's Da Vinci Code". Eco is President of the Scuola Superiore di Studi Umanistici, University of Bologna, and an Honorary Fellow of Kellogg College, University of Oxford.

He has also written academic texts, children’s books and many essays. Eco was born in the city of Alessandria in the region of Piedmont (northern Italy). His father, Giulio, was an accountant before the government called upon him to serve in three wars.

During World War II, Umberto and his mother, Giovanna, moved to a small village in the Piedmontese mountainside. Eco received a Salesian education, and he has made references to the order and its founder in his works and interviews.

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