At times i've thought to reprint, in a facsimile edition, the eleven thousand volumes of "Ch'in-ting Ku-chin, T'u-shu chi-ch'eng'' ("Collection of paintings and writings of the ancient and modern period compiled by imperial order") but I feared the members of my club would be frustrated, not knowing ancient Chinese. I want the reader flipping through the "Codex Seraphinianus" to be like this warrior, or a child who has not yet learned to read, but rejoices in dreams or the fantasies the images suggest. Storming a monastery, meeting the basic needs of food and plunder, whatever Hun or other barbarian ignorant of language could certainly penetrate the library, and there he would unravel a wonderful illuminated manuscript. My first intention was to propose a "glossa" to worthy writers, from Borges to Calvino, but I realized it would be a mistake to introduce explanations into a work of an encyclopedic nature, born to explain itself. Other publishers have the "Atlantic Codex" by Leonardo da Vinci in their catalogs I'm very proud to have in my collection the signs of man the "Codex Seraphinianus." The "Seraphinianus" was designed and written by a modern day amanuensis, in a room in Rome from 1976 to 1978. Jordan Hurder posted some images from this new natural history book (the even more expensive first edition) if you are curious, as well as his «extraneous commentary».] I didn't find this book nearly as interesting, at least not worth it's 70 euro pricetag. Well not so new, they actually launched it in Rome the week we moved here, though unfortunately i didn't learn of the event until afterwards. Incidentally, yesterday i was checking Storie Naturali, a new book that he illustrated for Jules Renard. My comments are italicized in brackets & I've posted some more images, both from the book & of specific places around town mentioned in the Decodex.
Codex seraphinianus pdf series#
It's actually not a proper «decoder» so much as a a series of articles about the Codex Seraphinianus, a demystifier if anything. But now that I finally know some & because it seems no one else has properly translated it into English, i figured it would be a good exercise to translate this Decodex. I might have mentioned it before when i finally got my grubby hands on a copy, but it's in Italian & back then i didn't know any.
[ On the inner back cover of the Rizzoli edition of the Codex Seraphinianusīy Luigi Serafini there is a pocket containing a booklet called the «Decodex». Decoding the Decodex: demystifying Luigi Serafini's Codex Seraphinianus
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