Luigi Serafini (born 4 August 1949 in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

) is an Italian

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

and designer based in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

. He is best known for creating the ''

Codex Seraphinianus The ''Codex Seraphinianus'', originally published in 1981, is an illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world, created by Italian artist, architect and industrial designer Luigi Serafini between 1976 and 1978. It is approximately 360 pages (dep ...

'', an illustrated encyclopedia of imaginary things in what was believed to be a constructed language. This work was published in 1981 by

Franco Maria Ricci Franco Maria Ricci (2 December 1937 – 10 September 2020) was an Italian art publisher and magazine editor. Amongst his publications is '' FMR'', a Milan-based bi-monthly art magazine published in Italian, English, German, French, and Spanish for ...

Career

During the 1980s Serafini worked as an architect and designer in Milan. His objects were often defined by a

metalanguage In logic and linguistics, a metalanguage is a language used to describe another language, often called the ''object language''. Expressions in a metalanguage are often distinguished from those in the object language by the use of italics, quot ...

aptitude, like the chairs ''Santa'' and ''Suspiral'' or the lamps and the glass for

Artemide __NOTOC__ Artemide () is a design-oriented Italian manufacturer founded by Ernesto Gismondi and Sergio Mazza in 1960. Based in Pregnana Milanese, a suburb of Milan, the company specialises in the manufacture of lighting designed by designers an ...

. He has created scenery, lighting and costumes for the ballet "The Jazz Calendar" by

Frederick Ashton Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton (17 September 190418 August 1988) was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. He also worked as a director and choreographer in opera, film and revue. Determined to be a dancer despite the oppositi ...

Teatro Alla Scala La Scala (, , ; abbreviation in Italian of the official name ) is a famous opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the ' (New Royal-Ducal Theatre alla Scala). The premiere performan ...

and also worked for the

Piccolo Teatro di Milano The Piccolo Teatro di Milano (translation: "Little Theatre of the City of Milan") is a theatre in Milan, Italy. Founded in 1947, it is Italy's first permanent theatre, and a national "teatro stabile", or permanent repertory company, and is conside ...

. He has created set designs acronyms/logos for

RAI RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many terr ...

, and worked with

Federico Fellini Federico Fellini (; 20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993) was an Italian film director and screenwriter known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and most i ...

on '' La voce della luna''. He has a laboratory of ceramics in

Umbria it, Umbro (man) it, Umbra (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , ...

, and exhibits his work regularly, especially in the Netherlands. He has been a visiting artist at the

Banff Centre Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, formerly known as The Banff Centre (and previously The Banff Centre for Continuing Education), located in Banff, Alberta, was established in 1933 as the Banff School of Drama. It was granted full autonomy as ...

, and has exhibited at the Fondazione Mudima di Milano, the XIII Quadriennale, the

Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna The ("national gallery of modern and contemporary art"), also known as La Galleria Nazionale, is an art gallery in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1883 on the initiative of the then Minister Guido Baccelli and is dedicated to modern and contempora ...

(National Gallery of Modern Art) in Rome, Futurarium in Chicago, and Didael Gallery in Milan. In 2003 he made a polychrome bronze sculpture, ''Carpe Diem'', and other bas-reliefs for the Materdei subway station in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

. In July 2008, he completed a polychrome installation "Balançoires sans Frontières" (Altalene senza Frontiere) in Castasegna, Switzerland. In May 2007, he held an "ontological exhibition", ''Luna Pac'', at PAC in Milan. His work has been profiled in many Italian media and art publications,

''Codex Seraphinianus''

The ''

'' was originally released in a limited edition of 5000 copies in 1981. It has been reprinted on five occasions, first in a 1983 English language edition; then in Spanish and French in the 1990s, again in a limited number of 5000 copies each; and finally in more widely printed editions in 2006 and 2013. In 2013, Serafini also released a deluxe, signed and numbered limited edition of 600 copies. (300 in English and 300 in Italian)

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

was interested in the Codex. In 1984

Italo Calvino Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the ''Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the '' Cosmicomi ...

wrote an essay on it, which can be found in ''Collezione di sabbia'' (''Sand Collection'') by

Mondadori Arnoldo Mondadori Editore () is the biggest publishing company in Italy. History The company was founded in 1907 in Ostiglia by 18-year-old Arnoldo Mondadori who began his publishing career with the publication of the magazine ''Luce!''. In 1 ...

. The French choreographer

Philippe Decouflé Philippe Decouflé (born October 22, 1961) is a French people, French choreographer, dancer, mime artist, and theatre director.

was inspired by it.

Douglas Hofstadter Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is an American scholar of cognitive science, physics, and comparative literature whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, an ...

wrote about it at length. In a talk at the

Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles The Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles is a book collecting and bibliophile club run by students at the University of Oxford. It was originally founded in 1950 by a group of young bibliophiles, with the first meetings being held in Hilary ...

held on 11 May 2009, Serafini stated that there is no meaning hidden behind the script of the ''Codex'', which is asemic; that his own experience in writing it was closely similar to

automatic writing Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged spiri ...

; and that what he wanted his alphabet to convey to the reader is the sensation that children feel in front of books they cannot yet understand, although they see that their writing does make sense for grown-ups.

Other works

left, Pulcinellopedia In 1984 Serafini illustrated ''Pulcinellopedia (piccola)'', under the pseudonym P. Cetrulo (published by

Longanesi Longanesi, also known as Longanesi & C., is a publishing house based in Milan, Italy. It was founded in 1946 by Leo Longanesi and industrialist Giovanni Monti.Nanni Delbecchi (13 May 2016). "Longanesi fa settanta. Il 'Dottor Naso' aveva fiuto". ...

), with a suite of pencil drawings about the Neapolitan masque of

Pulcinella Pulcinella (; nap, Pulecenella) is a classical character that originated in of the 17th century and became a stock character in Neapolitan puppetry. Pulcinella's versatility in status and attitude has captivated audiences worldwide and kept t ...

. It was reprinted in 2016. The catalogue from Serafini's Italian retrospective, ''Luna-Pac: Serafini'', remains the only comprehensive publication of his oil paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, and landscape art. Serafini has also illustrated books, including an edition of

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...

's story "In the Penal Colony" and a 1988 book entitled ''Etimologiario'' by Maria Sebregondi in the style similar to the ''Pulcinellopedia''.Hurder, p. 21. In 2009 Serafini illustrated ''Le Storie Naturali'', a reinterpretation of ''Les Histoires Naturelles'' (Nature Stories) by

Jules Renard Pierre-Jules Renard (; 22 February 1864 – 22 May 1910) was a French author and member of the Académie Goncourt, most famous for the works ''Poil de carotte'' (Carrot Top, 1894) and ''Les Histoires Naturelles'' (Nature Stories, 1896). Among ...

, published by Rizzoli in a signed, limited edition of 600. This book features numerous pockets containing leaves of fantastic plants printed on heavy paper stock and die-cut to leaf shape. Other unpublished works and illustrations are reported to exist, but aside from the occasional exhibit of art (from clay figurines to plastic and polychrome sculpture to furniture and small installations), they are not available or publicly catalogued. Serafini started working on his own website, luigiserafini.com, in the mid-2000s but since 2009 it only shows a blank page.

References

External links

Metropolitana di Napoli, Stazione Mater dei, 2003
* *
He designed for Tonelli Design

Low table Strappo, 198940th Anniversary of The Codex Seraphinianu, 2021
{{DEFAULTSORT:Serafini, Luigi 1949 births Living people Artists from Rome Italian contemporary artists Italian surrealist artists Italian scenic designers