The Codex Seraphinianus

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The Codex Seraphinianus is a book I have never held in my hands. It is very rare and very cultish. Luigi Seraphini, an italian arthitect and industrial designer, wrote and drew the book in the seventies. It has been republished a few times in small print runs and is very expensive, factors that have contributed to its obsurity. The main factor, though, is that it is a strange and mysterious book. The Codex appears to be an encyclopaedia of an invented world, originated from that world. Meticulously illustrated and written in an invented alphabet/language, it describes the flora, fauna, architecture, culture and other features of this absurd, imaginary world. It has a feel similar to the writings of Jorge Luís Borges and the Voynich Manuscript, which seems like it could have been a direct inspiration for Serafini. I first became aware of the book through an article in The Believer and subsequently downloaded the whole book as a pdf. It's not quite the same as having the physical book, of course. I'll buy it some day.

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Douglas R. Hofstadter writes "Some people with whom I have shared this book find it frightening or disturbing in some way. It seems to them to glorify entropy, chaos, and incomprehensibility." I think this is one of the reasons I like the Codex. Its elusiveness is as important as its beauty. It's a riddle that can't be solved.

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