There were magazines about art; in 1982 Franco Maria Ricci conceived of a magazine that wasn’t merely about art. It did more: it displayed art. Here’s what Ricci wanted to do: unveil beauty, especially hidden, recondite beauty; photograph it, reproduce it, lay it out as no one ever had before; bring in the contributions of the finest scholars, writers of the caliber of Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges. And that is what he did. He infused the magazine with his instincts and his initials, like a monogram embroidered upon one’s garment. In short order, FMR become one of the world’s highest-circulation art magazines, collected and beloved by esteemed figures from every corner of the planet; Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis called it “the most beautiful magazine in the world,” Federico Fellini called it “the Black Pearl.”
The magazine was designed, from the first issue on, by Laura Casalis Ricci, who has been in charge of the New Series of FMR since 2022, produced with zeal and devotion by the editorial staff in offices in the Masone Labyrinth; a centerpiece of each season, like a basket of delicacies, it comes out four times a year, marking each solstice and equinox. Proudly featuring Bodoni type and impeccable graphic design, FMR continues to be a collector’s piece, with its tactile and experiential values, its fine paper, the excellent printing on high-quality stock. But here you can enjoy the digital version, with the same spirit but a lighter embodiment, dematerialized but filled with substance: an FMR that, as always, is there to please the reader and revel in its subjects.
Giovanni Mariotti
