From October 3, 2026, to January 6, 2027, the Labirinto della Masone in Fontanellato (Parma) will host VISIONI. “Milo Manara in the Labyrinth,” an exhibition promoted by the Franco Maria Ricci Foundation and organized in collaboration with COMICON, offers a unique journey through the work of one of the most important contemporary comic book artists, focusing on a theme that runs through much of his body of work: the labyrinth, understood as a place of imagination, myth, and inner exploration. Through a significant selection of original panels, illustrations, preparatory sketches, and materials drawn from the artist’s archive, private collections, and international lenders, the exhibition traces Milo Manara’s career spanning over fifty years, highlighting the constant dialogue between his work and literature, cinema, and the great Western artistic tradition.
The exhibition’s concept stems from the convergence of Manara’s imagination with that of Franco Maria Ricci, creator of the Labirinto della Masone, both of whom were deeply influenced by the thought of Jorge Luis Borges. For the Argentine writer, the labyrinth represented a symbol of infinity, knowledge, and the infinite possibilities of storytelling; Franco Maria Ricci gave it an architectural form, while Manara transforms it into a narrative space where reality, memory, and imagination intertwine. From this dialogue emerges an exhibition that invites visitors to follow an imaginary thread through works spanning different periods of the artist’s career, highlighting affinities, references, and inspirations.
The exhibition is organized into three thematic sections, each dedicated to a different interpretation of the labyrinth.
The first, “The Labyrinth as a Form of the Subconscious and the Imagination,” explores the theme of the inner journey and the construction of narrative through illustrations drawn from *Fone*—an explicit homage to Borges’s *The Library of Babel*—and from Giuseppe Bergman’s *Journey to Tulum* and *Escape from Piranesi*. In these works, the boundary between dream and reality dissolves, while the labyrinth becomes a metaphor for the search for identity, memory, and narrative itself.
The second section, “The Labyrinth as a Place of Myth,” presents a selection of set designs created by Manara for the opera *Così fan tutte*. Mythological figures, deities, and references to Ovid’s *Metamorphoses* accompany the visitor into a universe where desire, transformation, and deception find their most representative symbol in the Minotaur.
The final part of the exhibition, *The Inner Journey*, is dedicated to the panels created for *The Name of the Rose*, a comic book adaptation of Umberto Eco’s famous novel. The work represents one of the most significant points of connection between Manara, Borges, and Franco Maria Ricci: the labyrinth of the medieval library imagined by Eco interacts with the geometries of the Labirinto della Masone, creating a dense web of literary, artistic, and visual references.
For this exhibition, Milo Manara has also created an original, previously unpublished illustration dedicated to the Labirinto della Masone. The work serves as an exclusive tribute to the venue hosting the exhibition and reinforces the dialogue between the artist and the cultural universe conceived by Franco Maria Ricci. The exhibition will also be accompanied by the official catalog *VISIONI*, published by Franco Maria Ricci Editore, with texts by Pietro Mercogliano and Claudio Curcio.
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| Milo Manara’s exhibition at the Labirinto della Masone explores the various interpretations of the labyrinth |
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