“Wonderful,” “visionary,” “cult classic” are just a few of the adjectives that best describe this little book from 1760, published anonymously and entitled Giphantie. Its anagrammatic title did little to conceal the identity of its author, a certain Charles Tiphaigne, a doctor and alchemist from Normandy. This travelogue to the land of nowhere, whose political and ecological awareness and high moral standards shine through on every page, predicts the advent of modern technologies such as photography (invented sixty years later), remote transmission of images and sound, contact lenses, and many other things.

Long forgotten, this utopian fiction, worthy of the great authors of the 18th century, is presented here in its entirety and illustrated by a series of unpublished works by French painter Romain Bernini, marking his first major publication. The book Giphantie accompanies the exhibition Voyages à Giphantie presented at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, on the occasion of the bicentennial of photography, from January 28 to May 3, 2026.