Could this be the most amazing book ever published?

Codex Seraphinianus is an encyclopedia first published in 1981 about a super natural world that reflects our own, “and is my attempt to describe this imaginary world in a systematic way,” says the author Luigi Serafini. Each chapter describes a mystical parallel universe, including flora, fauna, biology, machines, games and architecture, its aim to show the importance of understanding genetics and computer science.

The drawings came first.

Like a guide to an alien world, Codex Seraphinianus is 300 pages of descriptions for an imaginary existence, all in its own unique (and unreadable) alphabet, it has been a collector’s favorite for years and has developed a cult- like followlng, I only heard about this now, thanks to a friend’s fb post.

Luigi Serafini, born in Rome in 1949, is an Italian architect-turned-artist who also worked in industrial design, painting, illustration and sculpture. As one might expect, Federico Fellini was a grand admirer. Serafini openly admits to having taken mescaline, a hallucinogenic drug, highly practical to ‘stretch creative horizons’- putting it mildly… “under its effects, you are completely blind, you think you’re making works of art, but when you become sober again you find out that it’s just mediocre.”

Sources:

• https://www.grapheine.com/en/graphic-design-en/codex-seraphinianus-the-most-peculiar-book-in-the-world#5

• http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Seraphinianus

• http://www.paleoaliens.com/event/seraphinianus/codex/