Biblioteca Eco Opens in Bologna, Recreating Umberto Eco’s Personal Library

In early July, the Biblioteca Eco opened at 2 Piazza Puntoni in Bologna, displaying 32,000 volumes from Umberto Eco’s Milan home. The library recreates the exact arrangement of Eco’s shelves through meticulous photography, with books in double rows and stacked as he left them. Eco, who lived in Bologna for over 45 years and taught semiotics, was a cofounder of Italy’s first multidisciplinary degree programme, DAMS, in 1971, and chaired the semiotics department from 1975. Born in Alessandria, Piedmont, and died in Milan ten years ago, he is most associated with Bologna and its university. The collection includes comics, thrillers, semiotics, philosophy, world religions, novels, botany, and Dante translations. Eco’s books feature notes in indelible pen, dog-eared pages, and broken spines—habits he defended. Additional books remain at his country house near Urbino, while his ancient volumes on the occult, alchemy, witchcraft, demonology, sciences, and memory techniques were acquired by the Braidense library in Milan, founded by Maria Theresa of Austria in 1770. Eco championed owning books for their physical presence and tactile pleasure, despite embracing computers and e-readers. The Biblioteca Eco serves as an antidote to a world increasingly muddled by AI. The article appears in the October 2026 issue of ArtReview.