Umberto Eco is an outstanding Italian literary figure. In 1956, he published his first monograph, "The Aesthetic of Thomas Aquinas". In 1962, he released "The Open Work", becoming a representative scholar of Italian postmodernism. Since 1964, while teaching at the University of Milan, he initiated the study of architectural semiotics. In 1971, he established the first semiotics chair at the University of Bologna. In 1974, he organized the first International Congress of Semiotics. His novel "The Name of the Rose", published in 1980, has sold over 16 million copies worldwide, been translated into 35 languages and adapted into a film.