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Graphic designer, editor, art collector, passionate bibliophile, labyrinth builder, Franco Maria Ricci, weakened by a long illness, died of a heart attack at his home in Fontanellato, in the province of Parma. He was 82 years old, most of which he spent in search of Beauty: it is no coincidence that ‘Ephemere – The inevitable beauty’ is the title of the documentary that the team of ‘his’ Labirinto della Masone had dedicated to him for his 80 birthday. Born in Parma on December 2, 1937, Franco Maria Ricci began his activity in 1963. A great friend of Jorge Luis Borges, he will build Masone’s Labyrinth in Fontanellato, the largest in the world, which also includes monumental buildings and houses a prestigious collection of art and books, also to honor the promise made to the Argentine writer. Shocked by his encounter with the work of Giambattista Bodoni, Ricci began his career with an anastic reprint of the Typographic Manual, a work that is not even found in antiques, in three volumes published in 900 numbered copies, on Fabriano paper and bound in leather black. In 1965 the Franco Maria Ricci publishing house was born.
And in 1972 Ricci began printing the great Encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert and at the same time created his art volume series: Quadreria, Segni dell’Uomo. In 1977 ‘La Biblioteca di Babele’ was born, directed by Borges, published in Italian, French and English, which includes rare or little known titles by great writers such as Chesterton, Henry James, Jaques Cazotte, Giovanni Papini. But the great success came in 1982 when Ricci, together with Laura Casalis and some excellent collaborators such as Giulio Confalonieri, Massimo Listri, Vittorio Sgarbi and Giovanni Mariotti created the art magazine that would mark the publisher’s greatest success: FMR, which will soon become in a magazine of great circulation, printed around the world in four different editions, Italian, English, French, Spanish and defined by Fellini as ‘La perla negra’, published until 2004.
Among the other publications of the eighties and nineties, the Grand Tour series, a series of large-format volumes on the artistic wonders of Italian cities, from the most famous to the most secret, full of color photographs, accompanied by texts that narrate historical events. and artistic works of the town or monument to which the volume is dedicated. And then the Encyclopedias of the cities (Milan, Parma, Rome and, more recently, the Encyclopedia of Sicily), and the series, edited by Gianni Guadalupi, dedicated to the manors, principalities and ancient states of Italy. In 2004 Franco Maria Ricci left the management of FMR magazine to dedicate much of his time to the construction of a huge labyrinth made entirely of bamboo plants in the countryside of Parma. He founded the publishing house Ricci editore, later Franco Maria Ricci editore, based in Fontanellato, which publishes a few very precise editions each year both in graphic terms and in terms of content, with special attention to bibliophilia and Italian masterpieces. The funeral of Franco Maria Ricci will be held in the Cathedral of Parma on Monday, September 14 at 11.30 am.
