Editing Umberto Eco (section)

==Early life and education==
Eco was born on 5 January 1932 in the city of [[Alessandria]], in [[Piedmont]] in northern Italy. The spread of [[Italian fascism]] throughout the region influenced his childhood. At the age of ten, he received the First Provincial Award of Ludi Juveniles after responding positively to the young Italian fascist writing prompt of "Should we die for the glory of Mussolini and the immortal destiny of Italy?"<ref name=":2">{{Cite news|last=Eco|first=Umberto|title=Ur-Fascism|journal=The New York Review of Books 2022|language=en|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/|access-date=2022-01-25|issn=0028-7504|archive-date=18 February 2023|archive-url=https://archive.today/20230218121115/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/|url-status=live}}</ref> His father, Giulio, one of thirteen children, was an accountant before the government called him to serve in three wars. During [[World War II]], Umberto and his mother, Giovanna (Bisio), moved to a small village in the Piedmontese mountainside.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.enotes.com/topics/umberto-eco|title=Umberto Eco Biography|work=eNotes|access-date=23 April 2016|archive-date=1 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160301211321/http://www.enotes.com/topics/umberto-eco|url-status=live}}</ref> His village was liberated in 1945, and he was exposed to American comic books, the European Resistance, and the Holocaust.<ref name=":2" /> Eco received a [[Salesians of Don Bosco|Salesian]] education and made references to the order and its founder in his works and interviews.<ref>{{Citation|url=http://www.sdb.ph/sdb4/N7/20040644ENG.doc|title=Don Bosco in Umberto Eco's latest book|journal=N7: News Publication for the Salesian Community|page=4|date=June 2004|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090306042413/http://www.sdb.ph/sdb4/N7/20040644ENG.doc |archive-date=6 March 2009}}</ref>

Towards the end of his life, Eco came to believe that his family name was an acronym of ''ex caelis oblatus'' (from Latin: a gift from the heavens). As was the custom at the time, the name had been given to his grandfather (a [[Child abandonment|foundling]]) by an official in city hall. In a 2011 interview, Eco explained that a friend happened to come across the acronym on a list of [[Society of Jesus|Jesuit]] acronyms in the [[Vatican Library]], informing him of the likely origin of the name.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Fifteen Questions with Umberto Eco {{!}} Magazine {{!}} The Harvard Crimson|url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/11/17/umberto-writer-interview/|access-date=18 August 2020|website=www.thecrimson.com|archive-date=19 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210219202335/https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/11/17/umberto-writer-interview/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Umberto's father urged him to become a lawyer, but he entered the [[University of Turin|University of Turin (UNITO)]], writing his thesis on the aesthetics of [[Medieval philosophy|medieval philosopher]] and theologian [[Thomas Aquinas]] under the supervision of [[Luigi Pareyson]], for which he earned his [[Laurea#Former status of the Laurea degree|Laurea degree]] in philosophy in 1954.