"Umberto Eco was one of the people I spent the most time with but knew the least," writes Tullio Pericoli. "He deserves a lifetime record for never talking about himself, not even in his novels. Not until the very end. Essentially, I think he deprived himself of a pleasure. I mean, who doesn’t like to talk about themselves, and sometimes even whine a little? By not confiding in others, others were not inclined to confide in him. I would never have talked to him about something that saddened me or about a love story that was causing me heartache. He would’ve tried to cheer me up, of course, but probably by telling me a joke. It was easier to understand his mind than his soul. Eco was interested in the mind; he lived for his mind. For him, souls were stupid."
Portraits: Umberto Eco, Saul Steinberg, and Aldo Buzzi
UMBERTO ECO
When my love affair with the city of Milan began, Umberto Eco, who was only four years older than me, was already practically editor-in-chief of Bompiani publishing company. I sought him out, arranged a meeting, and pitched my drawings to him. Clean-shaven, his fair skin in contrast with his dark hair, he had pleasant features and a voice that occasionally bordered on shrill. He never lost that metallic falsetto.
Nothing came of the meeting, but what remains of it in my memory is a tone of kindness that Eco didn’t actually display but, rather, thought. Eco thought through every single thing, whether it was something he had to do or something that had to be done to him. I believe he also thought a lot about his death, just as he thought about and planned for what came after.
Our real meeting came on the heels of a letter he wrote me in 1977 in which he asked for the original of a drawing I did of him that was published in the Corriere della Sera.
“I certainly can’t return the favor by sending you a typescript of one of my articles with handwritten corrections. In the best-case scenario, it would only acquire value as a collectible in a couple of centuries, which is to say after the Apocalypse,” he added in his letter.
As he confided to Silvia Ballestra, our families became close friends, and that included our children, wives, and grandchildren. We spent time together in Milan, in Monte Cerignone, and at our home in Rosara, near Ascoli. What he loved most about the house in Rosara was the swimming pool: he spent hours floating in it. His body kept him buoyed up naturally. I remember how he’d rest on the water without moving and let the waves from other swimmers gently rock his body. Back then, his house in Monte Cerignone didn’t have a swimming pool. “Talk to Renate about it, tell her it’s no big deal,” he’d say. But Renate, his wife, didn’t want a pool. She had enough to do hosting all their friends and didn’t need to deal with a pool as well. And then one was built for him.
Eco was one of the people I spent the most time with but knew the least. He deserves a lifetime record for never talking about himself, not even in his novels. Not until the very end. Essentially, I think he deprived himself of a pleasure. I mean, who doesn’t like to talk about themselves, and sometimes even whine a little?
By not confiding in others, others were not inclined to confide in him. I would never have talked to him about something that saddened me or about a love story that was causing me heartache. He would’ve tried to cheer me up, of course, but probably by telling me a joke. It was easier to understand his mind than his soul. Eco was interested in the mind; he lived for his mind. For him, souls were stupid. And he was probably right: the soul arouses passion, not reason. The soul devolves into the irrational, the soul blathers.
Once—we were already old at the time—we were sitting on the lawn in Monte Cerignone and I said, “Umberto, do you ever have someone in mind when you write? I do. I usually have one or two readers in mind, not always the same ones, but friends or people I hold in high esteem. What about you?”
Eco never had anyone in mind. “Maybe the people who’ll read my work in a couple of generations,” he said.
“But what about the critics or your millions of readers?” I asked. “Nope.”
Was that why he chose not to talk about himself? Did he consider us, and rightfully so, unworthy of listening to him?
In his later years he grew kinder and more generous. He went to great lengths to help out his friends. One evening I was touched to see him sitting in the back of the room at an inane launch party for one of my books. How I adored that man. And not just because his presence made me look good, which he knew, and which he knew that I knew, but because he truly wanted to give me the gift of his presence.
Then we, his friends, found out about his illness. Deeply worried about him, we kept each other updated on his health. But Eco himself never disclosed a thing.
One evening in mid-November, after the launch party for Giulio Camillo’s L’idea del teatro, we all went out to dinner. Eco had been one of the guest speakers, together with editor Lina Bolzoni. Fleur Jaeggy, who published thebook with Roberto Calasso, and who was also at the dinner, asked the waiter for some butter. Using butter at the table is a northern European custom, one that has never quite caught on in the restaurants of Milan. Fleur had to insist several times before the waiter brought it. At the sight of the butter, Eco suddenly came to his senses, as if reawakened from one of his reveries that plunged him into secret abysses. We were used to it. He often let his thoughts wander when he was at the table or, in any case, among friends.
He picked up a spoon, scooped out an enormous hunk of butter, and spread it onto a tiny piece of bread. Renate wasn’t there that night and I was taking her place.
“Umberto, you’re not really going to eat that!” I said. Eco looked at me like a child happily breaking the rules.“It’s bad for you,” I insisted.
“That’s why I’m doing it,” he replied proudly, popping the butter into his mouth. We looked each other deep in the eyes. That was the moment we finally spoke; I told him with my eyes that I understood.
He died that February. Half of Milan came to his funeral; it was mobbed. His knowledge of several languages meant that he had talked to many, many people over the years.
The day before the funeral we all gathered at his home in Piazza Castello to be with Renate, their children, and grandchildren. As I wandered around the living room, I found it impossible to detach from him mentally. It was as if he were down the hall, in his study, but I couldn’t get up the courage to go see him.
“You’re leaving without seeing Nonno?” his grandson, Emanuele, asked me as I was making my way to the door. A serious boy of fifteen, he took me by the arm and led me down a long, book-lined boulevard of a hallway. Eco had been laid out in his study-library, surrounded by the amphitheater of his bookshelves. The perfect parallelepiped of his coffin reminded me for an instant of his swimming pool. We stopped a few feet away. Looking at the open coffin from the side, I could see half his face, half his belly, and the tips of his shoes. His face was rosy, as if warmed by the sun.
Ah, I thought, Umberto is just pretending to be dead. He’s really just floating on his back.
ALDO BUZZI (AND SAUL STEINBERG)
I admit that I tried to get to know Aldo Buzzi so that he would introduce me to Saul Steinberg. He figured it out and never forgave me for it.
I can’t remember how we eventually met or who introduced us. It might have been Giorgio Zampa, a mutual friend. I know for certain that I only started to appreciate Buzzi’s writing after we became acquainted: I bought his books, read them, and began to respect him. We sort of became friends, but it wasn’t easy being Buzzi’s friend. Steinberg was his only friend, and Steinberg’s only friend was Buzzi.
I had followed Steinberg’s work with careful attention and love ever since I realized that poring over his drawings helped my own hand grow stronger. I moved it more easily across the page, I learned when to rest, how and when to lift it up. The reflection of Steinberg’s hand filtered through the pages of his books, coming and going, giving rise to something that wasn’t merely a sign, but a tiny living being, with its own anxieties and neuroses, its moments of happiness and desperation. For a person who draws, capturing that sign and breathing new life into it is unequivocally both a commitment and a responsibility, yet also a great pleasure.
Would I ever manage to make the shadow of that hand become real? Would I ever be able to reach out and shake his hand with my own one day? That’s what I sought to attain through Buzzi. We were in contact, now and then, Steinberg and I: we exchanged letters and a few illustrated postcards, the kind he loved to send.
Steinberg was deeply attached to Italy and visited periodically, always staying with Buzzi. Then, from Milan, the two of them would go off to a small country house, somewhere near Varese or thereabouts.
Buzzi promised to introduce me to Steinberg on numerous occasions but each time, for some good reason, it never happened. Slowly but surely, these empty promises started to resemble one of Steinberg’s drawings. The words, vowels, and consonants of Buzzi’s excuses piled up one on top of another and took the shape of a wall that grew evermore insurmountable. The wall also served to protect the Steinberg originals that Buzzi kept at home, that he wouldn’t let go of, not for any price—this one was a keepsake, that one was tied to a special event, a third to a dear person.
In the end, I gave up.
One day, a few years later, I was at the Adelphi offices going over the layout for a book of my portraits, and someone showed me the galleys of a forthcoming publication. It was a book of letters that Steinberg had written to Buzzi, and that Buzzi himself had edited. A big, beautiful edition with lots of drawings, all which he owned. I went back to my studio and around seven that evening I telephoned Buzzi.
“I saw the galleys of the book of letters, with all those beautiful drawings. Please sell me one, Mr. Buzzi. You choose which one.”
“If you come to my house tomorrow morning at ten, I’ll give you one.”
“But Mr. Buzzi!” I said, stunned. I hadn’t expected him to say that. “People don’t do that kind of thing anymore—it would be amazing!”
“Just come over tomorrow.”
The following morning he welcomed me into his living room on Via Bassini as he had done many times before, then disappeared into another room. Several long minutes went by. He came back with a small Steinberg.
“From now on,” he said. “Call me Aldo.”
—translation by Oonagh Stransky
Adapted from Tullio Pericoli’s Incroci, published by Adelphi.
意大利重要作家、符號學家、理論家 Umberto Eco（安伯托·艾可）離世，享年84歲。
重要著作如《玫瑰的名字》、 《博科擺》、《讀者的角色──記號語言學的探討》等。
Italian writer Umberto Eco dies at 84
Reuters
The Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose, has died aged 84.
His family says he passed away late on Friday at his home. No further details were given.
The Name of the Rose was made into a film in 1989 starring Scottish actor Sean Connery.
Eco, who also wrote the novel Foucault's Pendulum, continued to publish new works, with Year Zero released last year.
He also wrote children's books and literary criticism.
Eco once wrote that "books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told".
"I am a philosopher," he was quoted as saying. "I write novels only on the weekends."
Eco founded the communications department at the University of San Marino in the 1980s.
He was later professor emeritus and chairman of the Higher School of Humanities of the University of Bologna.
Eco was born in Alessandria, northern Italy, in 1932.
Anthony Kenny《Aquinas 阿奎那斯》台北：聯經，1984
在 Aquinas (1225- ) 時代 他要去當遊方的 friar, 卻遭到 家人拘留 因為 他們要他當 monk 較有面子.....friar ：會士；修士：托缽的會士，多指方濟、道明、加爾默羅等會會士。friary ：會院；托缽會修院：多指方濟、道明、加爾默羅及思定等會會院。monk ：隱修士： (1) 度隱修、祈禱、補贖、遵守三聖願生活的人士，包括本篤會、熙篤會等會士。 (2) 僧侶；和尚（佛）：系借用此字，實際上二者之生活方式並不相同。
Umberto Eco’s Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable to Our Lives than Read Ones
How to become an “antischolar” in a culture that treats knowledge as “an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order.”
BY MARIA POPOVA
“It is our knowledge — the things we are sure of — that makes the world go wrong and keeps us from seeing and learning,” Lincoln Steffens wrote in his beautiful 1925 essay. Piercingly true as this may be, we’ve known at least since Plato’s famous Allegory of the Cave that“most people are not just comfortable in their ignorance, but hostile to anyone who points it out.”. Although science is driven by “thoroughly conscious ignorance” and the spiritual path paved withadmonitions against the illusion of thorough understanding, we cling to our knowledge — our incomplete, imperfect, infinitesimal-in-absolute-terms knowledge — like we cling to life itself.
And yet the contour of what we know is a mere silhouette cast by the infinite light of the unknown against the screen of the knowable. The great E.F. Schumacher captured this strange dynamic in the concept of adaequatio — the notion that “the understanding of the knower must be adequate to the thing to be known.” But how do we face our inadequacy with grace and negotiate wisely this eternal tension between the known, the unknown, the knowable, and the unknowable?
That’s what Lebanese-American scholar, statistician, and essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb explores in a section of his modern classic The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (public library) — an illuminating inquiry into the unknowable and unpredictable outlier-events that precipitate profound change, and our tendency to manufacture facile post-factum explanations for them based on our limited knowledge.
Taleb uses legendary Italian writer Umberto Eco’s uncommon relationship with books and reading as a parable of the most fruitful relationship with knowledge:
The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?” and the others — a very small minority — who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books anantilibrary.
Eco himself has since touched on humanity’s curious relationship with the known and the unknown in his encyclopedia of imaginary lands, the very existence of which is another symptom of our compulsive tendency to fill in the gaps of our understanding with concrete objects of “knowledge,” even if we have to invent them by the force of our imagination. Taleb adds:
We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order. So this tendency to offend Eco’s library sensibility by focusing on the known is a human bias that extends to our mental operations. People don’t walk around with anti-résumés telling you what they have not studied or experienced (it’s the job of their competitors to do that), but it would be nice if they did. Just as we need to stand library logic on its head, we will work on standing knowledge itself on its head.
Noting that his Black Swan theory centers on “our misunderstanding of the likelihood of surprises” because we underestimate the value of what we don’t know and take what we do know “a little to seriously,” Taleb envisions the perfect dancer in the tango with knowledge:
Let us call this an antischolar — someone who focuses on the unread books, and makes an attempt not to treat his knowledge as a treasure, or even a possession, or even a self-esteem enhancement device — a skeptical empiricist.
Complement The Black Swan, which is fascinating it its totality, with astrophysicist Marcelo Gleiser on how to live with mystery in a culture obsessed with certitude, philosopher Hannah Arendt on how unanswerable questions give shape to the human experience, and novelist Marilynne Robinson on the beauty of the unknown.
HT Bobulate
《神學大全》Summa Theologica一書分三大部，超過二百萬字，1963-75年有 Blackfriars 的英譯本。
。Kenny說第二部是Aquinas最偉大的作品，也是亞理斯多德《倫理學》的最佳注釋本之一。
我則讀過他的美學英文本，因為它是當代義大利學者 Eco的博士論文的主題。
Partly as a result of his involvement with Italy's national organization for Catholic youth, he wrote a dissertation on St. Thomas Aquinas and in 1954 was awarded a doctorate of philosophy.
The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas,1956
Il problema estetico in San Tommaso (1956 – English translation: The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, 1988, Revised)
Benedictine Order ：本篤會：為聖本篤 St. Benedict （ 480-543 ）于 529 年創立于義國喀西諾山的男、女隱修會；會士以祈禱和工作為兩大支柱，每日均隆重舉行彌撒，並隆重歌唱日課；對窮人、旅客視同對待基督，為當地民眾服務：指導農業、推展教育、藝術，對中古時代的歐洲有舉足輕重的貢獻。美籍本篤會士奉教廷之命于 1924 年來華，在北平創辦輔仁社， 1929 年正式立案為輔仁大學。 1933 年該會將輔仁大學管理權移交聖言會後，旋即轉往河南開封傳教並興學。之後在臺北及嘉義建有會院。本篤會全名為 Order of St. Benedict ，縮寫為 O.S.B. 。friar ：會士；修士：托缽的會士，多指方濟、道明、加爾默羅等會會士。monk ：隱修士： (1) 度隱修、祈禱、補贖、遵守三聖願生活的人士，包括本篤會、熙篤會等會士。 (2) 僧侶；和尚（佛）：系借用此字，實際上二者之生活方式並不相同。Dominicans ：道明會士；多明我會士： 1215 年由聖道明 Domingo de Guzman （ 1170-1221 ）創立於法國的普盧葉（ Prouille ），為乞食修會之一，注重講道，故亦名宣道會 Order of Preachers ，縮寫為 O.P. 。該會對教會神哲學貢獻頗多；著名學者聖大雅博（ St. Albert the Great ）及聖道茂（ St. Thomas Aquinas ）即屬該會。道明會 1631 年來華，在福建及臺灣傳教。為臺灣天主教的開拓者。首任中國籍主教羅文藻（西名 Gregory Lopez, 1661-1691 ）亦為該會會士。Dominicans ：道明會士；多明我會士： 1215 年由聖道明 Domingo de Guzman （ 1170-1221 ）創立於法國的普盧葉（ Prouille ），為乞食修會之一，注重講道，故亦名宣道會 Order of Preachers ，縮寫為 O.P. 。該會對教會神哲學貢獻頗多；著名學者聖大雅博（ St. Albert the Great ）及聖道茂（ St. Thomas Aquinas ）即屬該會。道明會 1631 年來華，在福建及臺灣傳教。為臺灣天主教的開拓者。首任中國籍主教羅文藻（西名 Gregory Lopez, 1661-1691 ）亦為該會會士。
Umberto Eco’s Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable to Our Lives than Read Ones
How to become an “antischolar” in a culture that treats knowledge as “an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order.”
BY MARIA POPOVA
“It is our knowledge — the things we are sure of — that makes the world go wrong and keeps us from seeing and learning,” Lincoln Steffens wrote in his beautiful 1925 essay. Piercingly true as this may be, we’ve known at least since Plato’s famous Allegory of the Cave that“most people are not just comfortable in their ignorance, but hostile to anyone who points it out.”. Although science is driven by “thoroughly conscious ignorance” and the spiritual path paved withadmonitions against the illusion of thorough understanding, we cling to our knowledge — our incomplete, imperfect, infinitesimal-in-absolute-terms knowledge — like we cling to life itself.
And yet the contour of what we know is a mere silhouette cast by the infinite light of the unknown against the screen of the knowable. The great E.F. Schumacher captured this strange dynamic in the concept of adaequatio — the notion that “the understanding of the knower must be adequate to the thing to be known.” But how do we face our inadequacy with grace and negotiate wisely this eternal tension between the known, the unknown, the knowable, and the unknowable?
That’s what Lebanese-American scholar, statistician, and essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb explores in a section of his modern classic The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (public library) — an illuminating inquiry into the unknowable and unpredictable outlier-events that precipitate profound change, and our tendency to manufacture facile post-factum explanations for them based on our limited knowledge.
Taleb uses legendary Italian writer Umberto Eco’s uncommon relationship with books and reading as a parable of the most fruitful relationship with knowledge:
The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?” and the others — a very small minority — who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books anantilibrary.
Eco himself has since touched on humanity’s curious relationship with the known and the unknown in his encyclopedia of imaginary lands, the very existence of which is another symptom of our compulsive tendency to fill in the gaps of our understanding with concrete objects of “knowledge,” even if we have to invent them by the force of our imagination. Taleb adds:
We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order. So this tendency to offend Eco’s library sensibility by focusing on the known is a human bias that extends to our mental operations. People don’t walk around with anti-résumés telling you what they have not studied or experienced (it’s the job of their competitors to do that), but it would be nice if they did. Just as we need to stand library logic on its head, we will work on standing knowledge itself on its head.
Noting that his Black Swan theory centers on “our misunderstanding of the likelihood of surprises” because we underestimate the value of what we don’t know and take what we do know “a little to seriously,” Taleb envisions the perfect dancer in the tango with knowledge:
Let us call this an antischolar — someone who focuses on the unread books, and makes an attempt not to treat his knowledge as a treasure, or even a possession, or even a self-esteem enhancement device — a skeptical empiricist.
Complement The Black Swan, which is fascinating it its totality, with astrophysicist Marcelo Gleiser on how to live with mystery in a culture obsessed with certitude, philosopher Hannah Arendt on how unanswerable questions give shape to the human experience, and novelist Marilynne Robinson on the beauty of the unknown.
HT Bobulate
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