The imaginative universe of Piero Fornasetti, an iconic figure of Italy’s economic boom, and the creative continuity of his son Barnaba.

Piero Fornasetti started his business in the immediate postwar period, when in 1947—encouraged by Gio Ponti, who first sensed his talent—he presented ceramics at the eighth Milan Triennale. In the early 1950s, together with Ponti, he created the furnishings for the great Italian transatlantic liners, a fruitful collaboration that would give him great visibility. Piero Fornasetti quickly expanded production with furniture, furnishings and accessories, household objects, and fabrics, becoming an iconic designer in Italy as the country was reborn, rebuilt, and transformed after the war in the years of the economic boom. Some of Fornasetti’s furniture—the trumeau, the desk, the chest of drawers—have fully entered the history of twentieth-century Italian design.

When Rizzoli’s bookshop opened its doors in 1964, it was set on one of the most luxurious streets in the world, Fifth Avenue in New York, with iconic shops such as Tiffany's and Cartier as its neighbours. Its original location immediately demonstrated Rizzoli's ambition to establish itself as an icon of New York culture and luxury, a goal that was fulfilled almost immediately, and which was consolidated when in 1974 it began its activity as a publisher. 

Beautifully illustrated books on architecture, interior design, fashion, photography, haute cuisine and fine art made Rizzoli New York one of the world's leading publishers.