Lanny-yap: The Codex Seraphinianus

22 January 2011

The Codex Seraphinianus

The Codex Seraphinianus is a book written and illustrated by the Italian artist, architect and industrial designer Luigi Serafini during thirty months, from 1976 to 1978. The book is approximately 360 pages long (depending on edition), and appears to be a visual encyclopedia of an unknown world, written in one of its languages, a thus-far undeciphered alphabetic writing.

The Codex is divided into eleven chapters, partitioned into two sections. The first section appears to describe the natural world, dealing with flora, fauna, and physics. The second deals with the humanities, the various aspects of human life: clothing, history, cuisine, architecture and so on. Each chapter seems to treat a general encyclopedic topic.

The illustrations are often surreal parodies of things in our world ... The writing system ... appears modelled on ordinary Western-style writing systems ... The language of the codex has defied complete analysis by linguists for decades. The number system used for numbering the pages, however, has been cracked ... It is a variation of base 21.

... Serafini has stated that the script of the Codex is asemic, that his own experience in writing it was closely similar to automatic writing, and that what he wanted his alphabet to convey to the 'reader' is the sensation that children feel in front of books they cannot yet understand, although they see that their writing does make sense for grown-ups.

SOURCE

View a video of the Codex below or download a copy here.

YouTube | The Anomalist

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22 January 2011

The Codex Seraphinianus

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