Foucault's Pendulum
The writer is Umberto Eco. His novels also include "The Name of the Rose", "The Island of the Day Before", "Baudolino", "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana", "The Prague Cemetery" and "Numero Zero". From 2008 to the time of his death at the age of 84, he was a professor emeritus at the University of Bologna, where he had taught since 1971. He has also written many non-fiction works, published from 1956 to 2017.