Codex Seraphinianus

The Codex Seraphinianus was written and illustrated by Italian artist, Luigi Serafini during the late 1970s.

This book, which is 300-odd pages long, consists of illustrations of a fantasy world, together with "explanatory" text in a made-up writing system.

The illustrations are often a sort of parody of things in our world, for example: bleeding fruit; a plant that grows into roughly the shape of a chair and is subsequently made into one; a lovemaking couple that metamorphoses into a reptile; etc.

The false writing system appears modelled on ordinary Western-style writing systems (left-to-right writing in rows; an alphabet with uppercase and lowercase; probably a separate set of symbols for writing numerals) but is much more curvilinear. It seems to have been designed to appear, but not actually be, meaningful.

The overall tone of the book is one of playfulness.

This is a rare and expensive book. If you wish to view it, I suggest borrowing it from a public library.