Codex seraphinianus

Imagine you could talk to Hieronymus Bosch, the authors of the Book of Revelation, or of the Voynich Manuscript—a bizarre 15th century text written in an uncrackable code; that you could solve centuries-old mysteries by asking them, “what were you thinking?” You might be disappointed to hear them say, as does Luigi Serafini, author and illustrator of the Codex Seraphinianus, “At the end of the day [it’s] similar to the Rorschach inkblot test.

“You see what you want to see. You might think it’s speaking to you, but it’s just your imagination.”

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: A Week With the Believer: The Codex Seraphinianus. (2007)

The Codex Seraphinianus is an illustrated book put together by the Italian artist and architect Luigi Serafini (born in 1949). Originally published in 1981, the book contains a depiction of an imaginary world, and all the writing is done in an imaginary language. Admittedly the language doesn’t mean anything, but the fact that it looks like a…

The illustration depicts a fantastical plant with three large, red flowers with intricate details. The flowers are connected to a central stem with a bulbous, green base. Two unique, pear-shaped fruits with spotted patterns, one black and white and the other orange and black, are attached to the stem. The base of the plant is adorned with a large, ruffled, purple leaf, adding to the whimsical and otherworldly nature of the artwork.

The Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini

Many thanks to Will Crofoot for sharing these otherwordly illustrations taken from Luigi Serafini’s masterpiece Codex Seraphinianus, a fantastical encyclopedia of the unknown completed betwee…

What would happen if you saw a book filled with images that reminded you of what you saw when you were fried on acid? This is just the case when I first saw the pages of the Codex Seraphinianus. These are the kind of visuals that take over my imagination when I listen too much […]