Watch Umberto Eco's Lecture at the Beinecke’s 50th Anniversary Celebration

In a rare public appearance in the United States, renowned Italian writer and scholar Umberto Eco gave a lecture on Friday, Oct. 18 to commemorate the Beinecke Library’s 50^th anniversary.

Eco, whose best-selling 1980 novel, The Name of the Rose, was partly inspired by Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library, spoke before more than 500 people at the Yale University Art Gallery about the vital role libraries play in our culture.