Italian author Umberto Eco, who became famous for the 1980 international blockbuster "The Name of the Rose", died on Friday, Italian media reported. He was 84. La Repubblica newspaper said it had been informed by the family that Eco died late on Friday night at his home in northern Italy. Eco was virtually unknown outside university circles until well into middle age, when he found himself an international celebrity overnight after he published his first novel, an unorthodox detective story set in a medieval monastery. "He was an extraordinary example of European intellectualism, uniting a unique intelligence of the past with an inexhaustible capacity to anticipate the future," Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was quoted as saying by the Italian news agency Ansa.

The novel form was a new departure for Eco, who until “"The Name of the Rose" was best known for his highly academic writings on semiotics, the study of signs, and more topical weekly articles in the influential Italian political magazine L'Espresso.

His second novel, “"Foucault's Pendulum," was less successful internationally but still highly acclaimed. His last novel, "Numero Zero" (Number Zero), which was set in an Italian newspaper newsroom, was published last year.

Born in the northwest Italian city of Alessandria on Jan. 5, 1932, Eco was the son of an accountant employed by a manufacturer of iron bathtubs. His father wanted him to become a lawyer but he chose instead to study philosophy at the northern University of Turin, where he became fascinated by the medieval world.

After taking his doctorate in 1954, Eco started working for the recently established national broadcasting network RAI preparing cultural programmes and gaining a lasting interest in mass communication.