A few years back, when I was living in Ecuador, Jill and I went to the sleepy coastal town of Puerto Lopez for a beach vacation. We stayed at the excellent Hosteria Mandala. As we were checking out, I noticed that the owners of the place, an Italian-German couple in their 40’s, had a big coffee table-sized book on the reception counter.
I took a closer look; It was called The Codex Seraphinianus. I’d never seen anything like it — the thing was enormously thick; it contained page after page of surreal, sci-fi-inspired illustrations, and it was written in an unidentifiable text. I never forgot the book’s title because I scribbled it in my journal; every so often, over the next year or so, I’d come across my hastily-written note and wonder about that strange book. I even searched amazon.com and google for it but never found anything.
Then, just the other day, quite by accident, I came across this site: THE UNOFFICIAL CODEX SERAPHINIANVS WEB SITE
The site provides this acronym for Seraphiniaus, and provides an introduction:
Strange and Extraordinary Representations of Animals and Plants and Hellish Incarnations of Normal Items from the Annals of Naturalist/Unnaturalist Luigi Serafini
This web site is dedicated to giving information (what little there is) on the weirdest book in the world, the CODEX SERAPHINIANUS. The Codex is a collection of original artwork by Italian artist Luigi Serafini, presented as a travalogue or scientific study of an alien world. Unlike such alien worlds as Darwin IV in Barlowe’s Expedition, which one might find in a science fiction novel, the world in the Codex is obviously some kind of perverse reflection of our own. All of the Codex is presented entirely in an obscure alien writing. This writing, in combination with the bizarre pictures, is what finally puts the Codex in its own league for weirdness. For instance, on one page is a “Rosetta Stone” – only it just translates Codex script into another alien language. A lecturer presenting the “Stone” is nonchalantly stabbing a red blob inside of it while he points out aspects of the script. The whole effect is unimaginable, even after several “readings”, and I intend to stop failing to describe it now.
Here’re a couple of the tamer illustrations; these only just scratch the surface:
And:
This is one is typical of the many darker illustrations:
Apparently the book was published in the late 70’s and can be ordered online from an Italian bookseller. For more info and typical illustrations, check out this guy’s account of obtaining a copy in an Italian bookstore. There’s a Wikipedia page for the book, too, which contains more details.