Labyrinths. The Art of the Maze

In his first book in ten years, Franco Maria Ricci presents a rich and refined collection of photographs celebrating the art and mystery of mazes throughout the ages. Franco Maria Ricci—publisher, art collector, bibliophile, garden designer, visionary—presents this collection of beautiful, haunting photographs chronicling his latest project: a massive bamboo labyrinth near Fontanellato, Italy, scheduled to open in 2014. Beginning with the Minotaur, labyrinths have transfixed and enchanted us. This book explores labyrinths in every form—drawn graffiti-like on crockery, stamped on coins, traced in manuscript illuminations, carved on cathedral walls, and planted in gardens—and features literary quotations from Herodotus and Pliny to Jorge Luis Borges.

Franco Maria Ricci has been acclaimed as the publisher of many famous books, including Luigi Serafini’s celebrated Codex Seraphinianus. He founded the renowned cultural magazine FMR in 1982, which appeared in numerous languages worldwide. Giovanni Mariotti is the author of numerous Italian novels, short stories, and biographies. Umberto Eco, semiotician at the University of Bologna, is widely known as one of the finest living authors whose best-selling novels include The Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum, The Island of the Day Before, and Baudolino.