Umberto Eco (born January 5, 1932) is an Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, literary critic and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa, 1980), an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory. In that work he sets up several parallel philosophical conflicts within the novel: absolute truth vs. individual interpretation, stylied art vs. natural beauty, predestination vs. free will, and spirituality vs. religion, bringing the traditional world of medieval Christianity into a dialogue with post-modernism in order to examine the limits of each.