From October 11 to 19, 2025, Fiere di Parma presents three exhibitions that explore collecting through the lenses of sacred history, anthropology, and pop culture. One of the highlights will be a tribute exhibition to beloved sports journalist Bruno Pizzul, curated in collaboration with the Pizzul family.

(Parma, June 16, 2025 ) – A Bible the size of a hand, printed in Glasgow in 1896. A ritual shamanic headdress, an intricately adorned Maraja turban, a feathered cap from the depths of the Amazon. Alongside these: posters, sketches, bicycles, and iconic design. Objects worlds apart in both time and geography, yet united by a common thread: the power to preserve and communicate.

With this perspective—spanning spirituality, anthropology, and visual culture—come the three companion exhibitions for the upcoming Mercanteinfiera Fall edition (Fiere di Parma, October 11–19, 2025), the premier European fair dedicated to antiques, collectibles, and historic design.

“The Book of Books. Antique Bibles, Between Splendor and Devotion” (in collaboration with Video Type), “From Every Part of the World: Stories, Peoples, and Events Through the Hat” (curated by Martina Barison), “The Living Archive of Antonio Colombo: Art, Cycling, and Design” (in collaboration with Antonio Colombo), and “Homage to Bruno Pizzul” (curated with the Pizzul family) will offer four unique and interconnected journeys blending aesthetics, memory, and cultural imagination.

From sacred texts to ethnographic headdresses, from Renaissance printmaking to cycling legends, and one of Italy’s most iconic voices in sports broadcasting, Mercanteinfiera once again proves its mission: to narrate the world through the objects and symbols that transcend eras and generations.

Five centuries of the Bible in print

The exhibition curated by Luca Cena begins with a masterpiece of early Italian printmaking: the “Biblia Latina cum postillis Nicolai de Lyra,” printed in Venice by Ottaviano Scoto in 1489. It is the first illustrated Bible ever printed in Italy, a monumental four-volume work where commentary and scripture blend into a sophisticated visual language. Its woodcuts, attributed to the Master of Pico Pliny, are more than embellishments, they are integral storytelling elements.

Complementing this is the 1532 Paris edition of the Bible by Robert Estienne, the first true critical edition of the Vulgate. With annotations, lexicons, and textual references, it marked a turning point in the use of the Bible: from devotional object to tool for study and dialogue.

Another milestone is the 1558 Missale Romanum printed in Venice by Girolamo Scoto. Its red and black Gothic type and elaborate illustrations including twelve monthly engravings and over 700 decorated initials, showcase the Bible as a visual and liturgical masterpiece.

In the 19th century, the Bible took on new forms. The “Miniature Bible” published by David Bryce in Glasgow in 1896 is just 45mm tall, containing 876 pages and 28 illustrations. Created to commemorate the coronation of King George V, it embodies the era’s embrace of industrial precision and portability.

The exhibition closes with a 1876 Arabic edition of Genesis and Exodus printed in Beirut, representing the global reach and cultural diversity of the sacred text, bridging civilizations through translation and scholarship.

The hat as a cultural code: the evocative exhibition in Parma

If the Bibles on display trace the evolution of thought through the printed word, another collateral exhibition at Mercanteinfiera invites visitors to look at the world… from above. Titled From Every Part of the World, it is the result of over thirty years of travel, study, and collecting by the Barison family, curated by Martina Barison, featuring more than 250 headpieces from over sixty countries. This is far more than a showcase of accessories: it is a three-dimensional atlas of human identity.

Each hat on display serves, first and foremost, as a cultural code. There is the cardinal’s biretta once worn by Pope John XXIII, rich in symbolism. A shamanic costume from Nepal, a spiritual bridge between the living and their ancestors. A vintage catalog and cap from Lenci, a hallmark of early Made in Italy. Silverwork in the striking headgear and necklaces of the Chinese Miao people; a red woolen garibaldino cap and jacket; a headdress adorned with warthog tusks from Ethiopia’s Mursi people, each material reveals a landscape, a climate, a craft tradition. Each shape evokes status, belonging, belief. The headpiece becomes a magnifying glass on humanity, a visual, anthropological, and symbolic journey across time and geography.

In this exhibition, these objects transcend “exotic folklore” to become silent witnesses of human experience. Because every headpiece speaks not only of the person who wore it, but also of the world that shaped them. The exhibition takes on the form of a portable museum of cultures, where geographic distances collapse and diversity asserts itself through the powerful visual language of objects.

It’s an invitation to rethink fashion not as consumption, but as a layered, visual narrative of identity, suspended between the sacred and the everyday, ritual and reality. In an era inclined to flatten meaning and symbols, From Every Part of the World reminds us that difference lives in the details, and nothing tells us more about how a people sees itself than the hat it wears.

Art, cycling and design

This is a story that began in 1919 with Angelo Luigi Colombo and is still evolving today: the story of his son, Antonio Colombo. A story that weaves together different eras and many insights. More than just a mirror of social change or a hallmark of Italian entrepreneurship, it is above all a vivid example of a true collector’s spirit.

A simple steel tube transforms into a design object, it becomes a chair, an armchair, an umbrella stand and then bicycles: those of champions, those on the front pages of newspapers. In this creative surge, it edges ever closer to art. And it is precisely art that breaks the mold, unhinges tradition, and leads the entrepreneur toward a new dimension: today, that space is known as Colombo’s Gallery and Colombo’s Archive.

The rationalist Columbus furniture is part of our shared cultural heritage, just like many everyday objects whose display is meant not only to bear witness, but also to tell an exemplary story of Italian excellence, where entrepreneurship makes room for artistic passion.

This is the unexpected power of the exhibition The Living Archive of Antonio Colombo. Art, Cycling, and Design: it offers familiar images while revealing a behind-the-scenes narrative that few know, one that has the power to surprise, move, and inspire.

Mercanteinfiera fall 2025: where memory becomes vision

With over 1,000 exhibitors and more than 6,000 international buyers, Mercanteinfiera is more than a fair, it is a cultural observatory.

“True collecting doesn’t come from possession, but from relationship,” says Ilaria Dazzi, Brand Manager of Mercanteinfiera. “Collectors seek meaning. An object becomes collectible when it resonates with us, when it enters into dialogue with our identity and history.”

She adds: “To some, collecting is obsession; to others, it’s a form of knowledge. It’s a way to bring order to chaos, to connect eras, cultures, and styles. As Goethe said, collectors are happy people.”

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