Luigi Serafini

Between 1976 and 1979, after studying architecture, Luigi Serafini created the Codex Seraphinianus, a masterful work first published in 1981 by Franco Maria Ricci and constantly reprinted since then. A “book of all books”, this encyclopaedia of an invented, surrealist world – heralding a hybrid humanity in which plants, animals and objects combine – is a worldwide bestseller. Going beyond the boundaries of the visible and invisible, mixing illustrations with writing, the book is an inexhaustible source of inspiration.

A polymorphous creator, Luigi Serafini collaborated with the design and architecture group Memphis, among others. A painter, writer and friend of Fellini, for whom he created the poster for the film La voce della Luna (1990), and the great satrap of the College of ’Pataphysics since 2016, Luigi Serafini is a smuggler between a certain surrealism and Beat Generation poetry, cabinets of curiosities, Proust, Joyce and the contemporary world of social networks. Italo Calvino wrote a preface to the 1984 edition of the Codex, and the cover of Calvino’s book Collection of Sand bears Serafini’s illustration Poissoeil / Fisheye. This fisheye became a favourite motif of young “Sarafans” worldwide, who tattooed themselves with the image, which went viral by circulating on bodies.