Umberto Eco’s CV would read as a dizzyingly long catalogue of academic achievements and literary success. From the developing the term ‘opera aperta’ to rallying Italians against Berlusconi  (“So far we believed that Mubarak and our prime minister only had a niece in common. Now we realize that they also share a refusal to resign”), Eco’s career has been anything but boring. Here are some interesting facts on the man himself:

1. The Italian novelist and philosopher’s most famous work, ‘The Name of the Rose’, was originally named ‘The Abbey of the Crime’, but Eco was worried this might mislead readers into expecting an action-packed thriller. He then went for ‘Adso of Melk’, after the protagonist, but thankfully changed his mind.
 
2. Eco’s literary inspirations range from Aristotle to Borges, although the ‘Name of the Rose’s’ protagonist is drawn heavily from Sherlock Holmes.
 
3. Eco lives between Milan and Rimini, where he has a 30,000 volume library in the former, and a 20,000 volume library in the latter.
 
4. His surname is an acronym of ‘ex caelis oblatus’ which was given to his grandfather by a city official. It is Latin for ‘a gift from heaven’
 
5. He provoked an uproar in March of this year by comparing the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to Adolf Hitler, saying ‘Intellectually speaking, Hitler also rose to power with free elections’
 
Umberto Eco is in conversation with Paul Holdengräber at IQ2’s event on Saturday November 19th at Kensington Town Hall. Click here to buy tickets.