From the collaboration between the Franco Maria Ricci publishing house and L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts – a prestigious French educational institution founded in 2012 with the support of Van Cleef & Arpels that aims to promote the culture of fine jewelry in the world – comes the new illustrated series Dédale . Conceived and created with extreme care, Dédale builds bridges between Literature and Art, human know-how, the highest craftsmanship, collecting…

The series will alternate timeless classics with authorial repêchages, reviewing the most important authors of the literature of the past, and bringing to light small literary treasures that have remained hidden from the general public. The first three titles will be presented in May: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894), The Invisible Collection by Stefan Zweig (1881 – 1942) and Laura. Voyage du cristall by George Sand (1804 – 1876). After these first three releases, a new title is planned for the autumn and, subsequently, two each year (one in spring and one in autumn).

Faithful to the mission of a broad sharing that goes beyond national borders, the new Dédale series is offered in three languages: French, English and Italian.

«The Dédale series has an absolutely unique and exceptional character: not only is it a series of beautiful and well-finished novels, accompanied by illustrations, but they are also published in multiple languages, transcending all borders and habits, since usually, each country has its own publishers, its own series and privileged authors. An unprecedented experiment, therefore, which brings together in the same series the great writers of a common Literature and creates a bridge between different cultures. In Europe, first of all, but also outside of it», explains Edoardo Pepino, director of Franco Maria Ricci .

«This project is based on the importance, for us, of opening the door to literature. There are infinite ways to discover the world of goldsmith art and jewelry. We decided to launch this series with FMR, taking inspiration from the Library of Babel, a literary collection that includes about thirty titles published between 1975 and 1985 – ranging from Voltaire, Poe, Chesterton, Kafka, Kipling… – and which was created by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899 – 1986) with Franco Maria Ricci (1937 – 2020)» explains Lise Macdonald , President of L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

The very name chosen for the series, Dédale, in addition to the reference to the mythological architect, recalls the last monumental work of Franco Maria Ricci, the bamboo labyrinth created in Fontanellato, near Parma, where the publishing house chaired by Laura Casalis Ricci and directed by Edoardo Pepino is now based.

Dédale therefore wants to be an invitation for readers to a “walk” through literature, full of (re)discoveries and surprises. A paperback edition available in bookstores – obviously very refined in its graphics – is associated with a “collector’s” edition bound in silk with a numbered edition, printed on laid paper, with illustrations applied by hand and printed on Garda coated paper. The “collector’s” version will be sold exclusively at the Franco Maria Ricci bookstore in Labirinto della Masone in Fontanellato or online, on the publisher’s website, and at L’Escarboucle (the bookstore of L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts at 16 bis boulevard Montmartre, Paris 9 and ).

Each book opens with the project manifesto, followed by a preface freely written by a guest author and a thematic introduction written by one of the specialists of L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts. The text is accompanied by illustrations by internationally renowned artists