Umberto Eco, the greatest contemporary writer, a scholar of the Middle Ages, a semiotician, and a specialist in mass culture, proved with his first novel “The Name of the Rose” that intellectual prose can top super-bestseller lists. Since then, the novel has been translated into dozens of languages and adapted for film; its worldwide circulation has reached several million copies. “The Name of the Rose” rightfully belongs to the world literary masterpieces of the 20th century.