Destini Incrociati

In 1969, Franco Maria Ricci first published Italo Calvino’s Il castello dei destini incrociati (“The Castle of Crossed Destinies”) in the exquisite volume Tarocchi. Il mazzo visconteo di Bergamo e New York. Years later, Calvino himself wrote that it was the publisher from Parma who convinced him to persevere with the publishing venture he had almost given up on. Publisher and author continued to work together from that moment on, fuelled by a shared love of words and images – key motifs underlying both their careers. In addition to telling the story of their collaboration, the volume includes several of their letters and retraces a relationship which blossomed from professional respect into friendship, thanks to texts by Laura Casalis and Giovanni Mariotti, who witnessed the meeting between the author and the publisher.