The Italian State Will Acquire Umberto Eco's Library from His Family and Hand It Over to the University of Bologna

The Italian state will acquire Umberto Eco's library from his family and hand it over to the University of Bologna. Almost five years have passed since the death of the writer and philosopher. Italy's Ministry of Culture has signed an agreement with the scholar's heirs under which Eco's archive and his library of 30,000 volumes will be preserved and made available to students and researchers. At the University of Bologna, where Umberto Eco worked for many years, the legacy will be kept for the next 90 years. The Bibliotheca semologica Curiosa, lunatica, magica et pneumatica, however, which comprises 1,200 ancient books, will be kept at the Braidense National Library in Milan. In 2018 the writer's widow and children envisaged that Eco's library, valued at 2 million euros, would be divided into two parts, although at that time the collection of 30,000 books not of early printing was to be distributed among various cultural centres of Italy, and the antiquarian books given to the Braidense.