Just in these days the University of Bologna has received the first 2500 volumes from the modern and working library of Umberto Eco. These are volumes annotated, annotated, underlined by the author's hand, which will be accepted in the University Library of Bologna (Bub), awaiting the definitive setting up of the spaces consecrated to the legacy of Eco's heirs.
Umberto Eco's books
I In addition to cataloguing, the books will also undergo a digitization and metadating process, financed by the Ministry of Culture. A job that will last a few months and will contribute to the Abulafia project: joint venture between the Alma Mater and the Eco family which also involves Cnr-Ilies and Cineca. The goal is the creation of a virtual version of the international scholar's modern library. In this way, it will be possible to consult over 35.000 volumes and documents from all over the world.
The Modern Library by Umberto Eco will be housed in the twentieth-century wing of the Bub, overlooking Piazza Puntoni. “The volumes will be arranged on white shelving distributed over two levels divided by a balcony – underlines the Alma Mater in a note – an explicit citation of the environment of origin, or rather the long series of white bookcases in the professor's Milanese apartment. But the environments will also dialogue with the destination venue, recalling the neoclassical forms of the two-level library commissioned by Benedict XIV, which today is theAula Magna of the University Library of Bologna“. After the summer, the 2.500 books will be open for consultation in the Special Collections Room of the University Library of Bologna.
A great intellectual of the twentieth century
Umberto Eco was born in Alexandria on January 5, 1932; he died in Milan on February 19, 2016. Eco was a great intellectual: semiotician, philosopher, translator, bibliophile, essayist and Italian medievalist. He has written numerous essays on medieval aesthetic semiotics, linguistics and philosophy, as well as several successful novels. In 1971 he was one of the inspirers of the first Dams course at the University of Bologna. always atAlma Mater of the Emilian capitalor, in the XNUMXs, he promoted the activation of the degree course in Communication Sciences already active in other locations.
In 1988 he founded the Department of Communication of the University of San Marino. Emeritus professor and president of the School of Humanistic Studies of the University of Bologna, Eco was also a member of the Accademia dei Lincei, for the class of Moral, Historical and Philosophical Sciences. Among his most famous novels is The Name of the Rose winner of the Strega Award a volume translated into more than 40 languages, which has become an international bestseller with over 50 million copies worldwide.
(Featured photo Wikimedia Commons – Aubrey CC BY SA 1.0)
