Domus Seraphiniana

In a seventeenth-century fairytale by Italian poet Giambattista Basile, the magical fumes from a fertility potion are so potent that the stools in the kitchen where it’s being brewed give birth to footstools, the soup spoons spawn demitasse spoons, the forks engender little dessert forks. Such are the mechanisms behind the vast array of ideas and shapes in the Roman home of Luigi Serafini, creator of the Codex Seraphinianus. As we tour this residence, we find ourselves wondering about the vast vocabulary regarding reproductive phenomena: mitosis and meiosis, haploid and diploid, eukaryotic and prokaryotic organisms, karyokinesis and cytokinesis, storks and cabbages, eggs and bunnies. Everything grows and multiplies, as we move from front hall to kitchen to dining room in a brightly colored process that mingles various kingdoms of the natural world, producing hybrids, such as a carrot-woman. The Domus Seraphiniana is a metamorphosis of Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus, with some genetic mutation.