THE IDEA OF THE LIBRARY - The collection of ancient books by Umberto Eco at the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense

Curators: James M. Bradburne, Riccardo Fedriga, Anna Maria Lorusso, Costantino Marmo, Valentina Pisanty, Bill Sherman

Publisher: Scalpendi

Year: 2022

Binding: Paperback

Pages: 192 p., ill.

Text: Italian

Description: The Braidense Library in Milan is enriched with a very important acquisition: the collection of ancient books by Umberto Eco. These are about 1,200 editions prior to the twentieth century, an immense heritage, including 36 incunabula, which will be kept in the same order in which it was in the Milanese house of the scholar in Piazza Castello. The catalogue of the exhibition The idea of the library, opened in Braidense, in collaboration with the Umberto Eco Center in Bologna and the Warburg Institute in London, it offers an extensive review of the "Bibliotheca semiologica curiosa, lunatica, magica et pneumatica" collected and so renamed by Eco himself. Contributions from scholars, friends and colleagues, analyze the interests of the semiologist and bibliophile.