Franco Maria Ricci

Franco Maria Ricci is an Italian graphic designer, publisher, art collector, and eccentric.

His company previously published a fiction series called "The Tower of Babel" edited by Borges. He made the covers in collaboration with Marcella Boneschi. While the original Italian series is long out of print, the Japanese edition is readily available from the publisher (though it might just be old stock). The covers were also used for a variety of European-langauge editions (the German edition used different covers for some reason); no English edition has ever been published. More information about the series is available here and here.

I haven't been able to find more information about Marcella Boneschi besides her being credited on a few other of Ricci's books.

Ricci doesn't generally give interviews but shows himself as quite eccentric and interesting in an interview with DesignBoom from 2001. For some perspective on the article, in 2009 the magazine he talks a lot about ended publication, and around that time he sold his publishing house (though he's evidently working on buying it back).

One of his recent projects is the world's largest bamboo labyrinth, built in Italy near his home. Ψ