mercredi 7 février 2007

In Search of Lost Time

The only readable text on the whole Codex are a few words in french on 2 plates in the 6th chapter " human (well.. seraphinian ?) anatomy, ethnology & anthropology "





On the first plate, the text is "fille orgiaq-ue surgie et devinée, le p-remier jour, s-ur la digue d-e Balbec".


A rapid search on a few digital librairies told me this quote comes from a book by the french writer Marcel Proust : "A la recherche du temps perdu : Albertine disparue" ( In Search of Lost Time : Albertine gone). In fact, the scattered words on the ground, also come from the following sentences in the same book, as shown on this image :



Later, I've been told that Cecilia Raba noticed this reference on her weblog ; she made a wonderful analysis on her post : "Una chiave per il Codex Seraphinianus".

In the second plate, the writer have been murdered, and a few other french words can be read on teared sheets of paper :


"statuaire .... liade-souven(ir?)... voici encore :", "...urel (naturel, surnaturel, culturel ?) yeux baissés"
I checked many online french books, but I have not been able to find any exact reference yet.

The whole text for Proust "Albertine disparue" can be found there :
http://pge.rastko.net/dirs/pge/pge06/100194/e100194.txt

mardi 6 février 2007

Links about the Codex

- Codex Seraphinianus on Wikipedia(en)
- the Unofficial Codex Seraphinianvs website : essential reading
- Seraphinians, on Tribe.net : one of the only active community discussing the Codex
- Politica Online forum : active Italian forum thread

- Diario of Cecilia Raba fascinated by the work of her friend Luigi Serafini
- Codex Seraphinianus, Hallucinatory Encyclopedia : in depth article by Peter Schwenger
- Visionary or Hallucinatory Encyclopedia?
- Another Green World : great article by John Coulthart
- Giornale Nuovo : How I found the Codex and Pulcinellopedia : another illustrated book by L. Serafini

Codex Analysis & Deciphering theories :

- A wiki with the most complete analysis so far (follow this link for user/pass)
- Codex Seraphinianus: Some Observations : structure of the text, page number systems by Ivan A. Derzhanski
- A Study of the Codex : promising analysis, work in progress
- The Codex Seraphinianus Mystery has finally been solved : not very convincing...

Links about Luigi Serafini

Here are the links about Luigi Serafini and his artworks, I gathered during the last few days :

His official website

A page with a biography and many paintings

Other artworks by Luigi Serafini :
- La famiglia GommItaly
- Interno rustico, ove si lavora e si produce

On Studio Plastikart website :
- Cowburger in Love
- L'universo è Cerveste!
- Lady C or Lady C
- GomItaly
- "I'M AN EGGCENTRIC"
- galgallina con il carrozzino etruxco
- galgallina - colombe
- cornici
- "carrozzino etruxco" robotizzato
- ellissi

Interviews with Luigi Serafini :
- Scuola di scrittura Omero
- Armando Adolgiso and another page (27/12/2006)

Audio Interviews on Rai Radio3 :
- About Escher (28/10/2004)
- About Paul Klee (27/10/2005)
- About Gauguin & Van Gogh (02/01/2006)
- About the Codex (31/01/2006)
- About the new Rizzoli edition (10/01/2007)

The Codex Seraphinianus



25 years after its first publication, I discovered the Codex Seraphinianus a few weeks ago thanks to an affordable new edition by Rizzoli :