The visit to the house of Luigi Serafini starts from this tribute to the beloved Ovidius (clearly interpreted in his own way). A total artwork, instead of a simple apartment, a living artistic organism, a stone’s throw from Pantheon, where since 1987 the famous Roman architect and designer, loved his and mysterious works, such as the Codex Seraphinian – “The encyclopedia of a visionary”, as Italo Calvino called it, published in 1981 by Franco Maria Ricci and became a cult object – lives and works.
And where he could live for a long time, together with his Daniela, if he was not for the “crusade” (as he defines it) for a while performed by the sovereign military order of Malta (Smom), owner of the property, who started an evacuation procedure, only temporarily suspended by the Hof van Rome who “The” Aesthetie.
Unfortunately, the suspension is only a temporary measure and the danger that this heritage will be dismantled remains lurking. In short, this Gesamtkunstwerk in the making, this artist studies that almost 40 years also represented a clear piece of art history of our country (and not only), a blacksmith of creations that have repeated the entire career of the Visionaire Serafini, which can defeat Italo Calvino and Roland Barthes and, even Tim Burton. It would not be believed.
The House Studio by Luigi Serafini | Photo: Samantha de Martin for Arte.it 2025
The paper -mâché -mask from Pulcinella laughs, unconsciously. Perhaps it will be remembered when, on Tuesday, Grasso from 1982, during the large carnival of Venice, an identical pulcinelleel head, but of much larger dimensions, was brought to Gondel in the large channel. Work by Luigi Serafini, was commissioned by the director of the Biennale Teatro, Maurizio Scaparro, to celebrate the rebirth of the Venice carnival after the prohibition imposed by Napoleon. At the foot of Persephone, the “Croc-Egg-Dile”, a crocodile consisting of eggs to the OS-Eog, seems to be listening.
But despite the enthusiasm and the friendliness of the landlord (who concentrates on every object and describes the story with funny details), the reference to the evacuation looms with every elaboration.
“Daniela and I – say Serafini – We remained the last inhabitants of this building (the climbing building of the Crescenzi 26 NDR) -. The others were forced to leave. Now we live here in two, such as spirits “.
His face is overshadowed. But then the visit to the house studio with many starters prepared by Daniela, arouses enthusiasm again, keeps the attention of visitors addicted to anecdotes, connections, distribution (such as a matrioska of stories) and with the irony of genius.
The House Studio by Luigi Serafini | Photo: Samantha de Martin for Arte.it 2025
Because the world of Serafini likes the audience. And also a lot. “In eight o’clock – Giorgia Dal Bianco of Open House Rome explains, the largest event in the capital dedicated to the architecture and organized by Open City Rome – we welcomed 1200 people who made almost two hours in a row to visit Luigi Serafini’s house, proof that this place is a space of great value and value”.
It is thanks to Open House Rome that we cross the gates of the Serafini house. And the petition that on Change.org has already reached the nearly 5000 signatures has always started from Open House. “Luigi Serafini’s Study House Saving means saving an unique in Italian artistic panorama, a place where art lives and inspires,” the signatories write.
“Thanks to Open City, this place will no longer be the same.” The master smiles. Then he continues to tell, while the writer, along with other enchanted visitors, is lost in the posters, chairs, objects, one of the most inapplicable, who make this box an extraordinary space.
“When I arrived, in 1987, the apartment was in disastrous state. The fireplace did not work (indicates it). Then I decided to transform it into an altar of the deer of Sant’estachio.”
The House Studio by Luigi Serafini | Photo: Samantha de Martin for Arte.it 2025
We reach this room (what the study is) that lights up for a frog, which indicates the transition from the entrance (“a place of welcome and knowledge”) to the real core of the house. The commitment is on his toes, as if the passage had the fear of penetrating the blacksmith of genius, the man’s refuge. The gaze lingers on a letter in Greek above the door: “Medes Agan” (“nothing outside the excess”) motto that resonates in the master’s house like in the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, then he is in the stands of a “Gal -Celetto” match, to retreat to the presence of a skelet.
In intelligence, the inspiration of Serafini from cultural and artistic heritage draws, but according to very personal canons that open to dreamy elaborations. As in the case of the Etruscan swing “where it wiped Lucumon”. But in this bizarre, apparently random Pottourri we see punctual references (it would be impossible without the help of the artist), from the columns of Peruzzi to the envoy of Lake Burano, from the entablature of the park of Villa Giulia to Heaven in Piazza Navona.
“I made a nice mess here,” he jokes.
The visit continues while the eyes are now on a print for Federico Fellini’s “The Voice of the Moon”, now on a bored Minotaurus who smears a gramophone that invites Teseo to dance (and then stabbed it down).
Serafini changes the myths, adjusts them to his imagination. Because if fantasy is “imaginative and representative power of the soul”, the Serafini house is the most sincere Alcova of the imagination of a man.
There are just enough books, as well as pencils, colors, sheets, “memories such as a pensioner” as he calls them, magnets on the fridge (the TV is missing) and also some drawings.
Entering the kitchen, on the other hand, means catapulting itself in the years after experience with the Memphis group, the collective of design and architecture founded by Ettore Sottsass and active between 1981 and 1987.
The House Studio by Luigi Serafini | Photo: Samantha de Martin for Arte.it 2025
The conversation continues, while we think about the SUSPAL chairs that were designed and put into production in 1982 by Sawaya & Moroni in Milan, and then noticed by Philippe Stark.
“The kitchen is from 1987 and was the first to have made this house.” But curiosity lingers with a task of 2000 that is made with the graphic table. We recognize Corso Buenos Aires in Milan. But something is not coming back. A few crosses the pedestrian transitions in the company of their clones, a woman loses a shoe … In Serafini the photo unlocks another memory. “I used the graphic table for the first time when I was invited by RAI to make the abbreviation for the documentary in 6 episodes of Enzo Biagi on the long march of Mao”.
The gaze now crosses the manifesto made in 2021 for the staging of Now re In the Argentina theater in Rome with the direction of Fabio Cherstich, for whose Show Serafini has made scenes, who work together on the setup.
The smell of hot bread invites you to suspend the memories for a few minutes and to enjoy the aperitif prepared by Daniela. For a moment we think that if the deportation should really reach, hundreds of packages would not be enough to describe Luigi’s life, his inspiration that galloping, his Kaleidoscopic spirit.
“This house could be a place of exhibitions, conferences, the Ministry of Culture is the only one who could try to activate a practice of recognition for protection …”. The enthusiasm (and hope) have never failed.
Otherwise it would be like raising a work of art on the ground, the room of a museum.
And there is really someone, in the name of beauty and humanity, to protect genius and fantasy, despite chatgpt and his majesty the Ia, willing to take this responsibility?
Serafini becomes 76 on August 4. Saving his house, everyone’s heritage, would perhaps be the best gift for him.
Or maybe just our thanks.
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