Luigi Serafini
Milano: Franco Maria Ricci, 1981.

The first edition of the ever mysterious Codex Seraphinianus by Italian artist Luigi Serafini (1949-). Possibly an illustrated encyclopaedia of an alternate universe, Serafini has alluded that it is perhaps all just the thoughts of a cat passed through his hand. The Codex is written in an imaginary language and illustrated phantasmagorically throughout. This being the true first edition published in 2 volumes by Italian art publisher Franco Maria Ricci. This copy numbered 2295 and signed by Serafini to the colophon of volume 2, with the original trilingual letter from the editor laid in, together with a FMR catalogue, several photocopied Italian newspaper clippings related to the Codex, as well as the deluxe edition of the only published volume of literary criticism in English on the Codex Seraphinianus, Confronting Serafini by Jordan Hunter (2017), all housed in the original shipping cartons. Confronting Serafini is a 36 page book hand-bound with treated pages from the 2013 Rizzoli edition of the Codex, signed and numbered in a limited edition of 10, of which this is number 10.