Italo Calvino published in 1972, for Giulio Einaudi, the novel “ Invisible Cities ”, one of the most important passages in literature that makes a combinatorial and semiotic use of the structure to create relationships between the reader and the author. Marco Polo explores 5 cities for each of the 11 categories and this repetition is clearly visible when he builds the summary table of the different combinations. A fundamental book for understanding the depth of Italo Calvino. In 1998 the painter and set designer from Palermo Manfredo Manfredi was freely inspired by the novelby Italo Calvino and a short film made with the rotoscoping and single-panel techniques. The result is a fluid and at the same time meaningful animation in the best Manfredian tradition.