Umberto Eco dies aged 89

The Italian best-selling writer and philosopher Umberto Eco, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose, has died at his home in Italy aged 89, according to his family.

"He was an outstanding example of a European intellectual, a single intelligence with an untiring ability to anticipate the future," said Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, according to local media reports.

"It's a huge loss for culture, which will miss his writing and his voice, sharp and vivid thought and his humanity," he added.

Eco was born in Alessandria, northern Italy, on January 5 1932, and was known as a philosopher and writer, but also an semiotician, someone who studies of symbols and signs.

Eco wrote more than 20 non-fiction books on semiotics and philosophy during his time as professor emeritus at the University of Bologna, Europe's oldest university.

But he became most famous for his first novel The Name of the Rose, published in Europe in 1980, which was later made into a movie of the same name starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater.

The bestseller, set in an Italian monastery in the 14th century, tells about the investigations carried out by Brother William of Baskerville and his student Adso of Melk around a mysterious series of crimes occurring in the abbey.

Eco, who had been suffering from cancer, was also known for other novels such as Foucault's Pendulum, The Island of the Day Before, Baudolino and The Prague Cemetery (2010).