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Cangiullo, Francesco (Naples, January 27, 1884–Livorno, July 22, 1977). He met Marinetti and other Futurists when he was fifteen years old, at a “Futurist evening” in his hometown, and he immediately joined them and began to publish in their main magazines. In 1916 he published two small books of poems, Piedigrotta and New Green, and in 1919 Café-Concert: Unexpected Alphabet, one of the finest examples of the type of Futurist work in which typographical experimentation adds considerable visual importance. C. also became interested in theater, and contributed to creating “synthetic Futurist theater,” for which he wrote, in 1916, the play Detonation and in 1918 Radioscopy of a Duet with Ettore Petrolini, and to the “Theater of Surprise,” whose manifesto he wrote with Marinetti. Before distancing himself from Futurism he published Pentagrammed Poetry (1923) and, in 1930, a personal account of the “Futurist evenings” that, for some reason—as if C. couldn’t resist their charm, which had drawn him to Futurism twenty years earlier—led him to return to their ranks at least temporarily: in 1930 he published the novel Ninì Champagne and, in 1937, the Futurist story “Marinetti on Mount Vesuvius.”
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Carduccio, Emilio (Palermo, October 12, 1904–Reggio Calabria, November 11, 1946). It is unclear whether he died in 1946—other sources mention 1947—or whether he belonged first to the Communist and then the Fascist Party, or if he was a fascist first and then later became a Communist to escape a formal accusation that finally did catch up with him and for which he died in prison. It’s also unclear whether either shift between the two parties was out of conviction, or mere expedience. Nor do we know if he wrote the piece entitled “Farewell to the Wife Who Smiles in the Dunes” or the one called “Ways of Temporary Insanity” or simply “Temporary Insanity.” Furthermore, it’s unclear whether those works weren’t just one single work, which could have been titled—there are accounts of this—“Farewell to Temporary Insanity” or “The Temporary Insanity of the Wife in the Dunes.” As such, C.’s trajectory is one of the most emblematic of the Italian twentieth century.
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Castellani, Abelardo (Castiglione del Lago, October 12, 1870–Perugia, March 8, 1942). He published, among others, the books The Mirror of Ash (1911), The Thirsty Machines (1926), Night on the Acheron (1929), Cruel Gospel (1931), and Other Panthers (1941), and for years ran the magazine Lo Scarabeo d’Oro (1921–1934). Some consider him one of the finest Italian short-story writers of the twentieth century, which may be less a compliment to C. than a statement on the calamitous, lamentable state of that literary genre in Italy over the course of said century. However, no one can deny that C.’s work has the merit of approximating literary quality while never actually brushing up against it, not even accidentally.
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Castrofiori, Filippo (Florence, May 26, 1884–Florence, November 15, 1947). At fifty years old, in 1934, C. published his Complete Works, apparently inspired by Gustave Flaubert. Except for his correspondence, the Complete Works of C. are devoid of any interest despite having been very popular in their day; perhaps the diptych of novels composed of Anxiety Visits the Via del Corso and The Way of the Flesh to Anxiety is somewhat interesting as a document of a period drowning in boundless expressions of sentimentalism. His essay on the perpetual motion machine he invented is disappointing due to the fact that, after listing his numerous failed attempts, and without any explanation, C. states that he’s finally found the solution to the problem, although he refuses to reveal it for fear that it will fall into the hands of the enemies of what he calls “Italian civilization,” which may or may not have been a joke. An opera about the “anthropogeography” of Friedrich Ratzel for which he wrote the libretto and the music has never premiered because, among other reasons, it requires twenty-six mezzo-sopranos and it’s rare to find more than a pair. He never published again after his Complete Works, in what may be the strangest literary career of the Italian twentieth century.
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Cataldi, Romano (Cantiano, March 14, 1893–Ethiopia, possibly Aksum, October or December 1935). Several arrests and some jail time for minor offenses during his youth; during which, he claimed, he learned to read and write, creating a series of somewhat autobiographical stories that the prison authorities destroyed for immorality. One of them, reconstructed by its author, was published in the Turinese magazine Stile Futurista with the title “A Long Shadow Dog” in August 1934. The following year, C. enlisted along with other young fascists from Perugia in what would be known as the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and disappeared for some months after his regiment helped take the important city of Aksum, on October 15 of that same year. (Other sources state that C. died a few weeks later, during the mustard gas bombings on December 22, 1935, when a gust of wind dragged the gas clouds over to the Italian lines, but that was never proved.) Despite his own statements, and the testimony of his friends, who insisted on the quality and quantity of his poetry, C. left no known posthumous work.
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Cavacchioli, Enrico (Pozzallo, March 15, 1885–Milan, January 4, 1954). F. T. Marinetti referred to him in 1909 as one of the “incendiary poets” of Futurism, but—despite belonging to that group, and being particularly valued for his role in the confrontations with the public that took place at each “Futurist evening”—he only superficially adhered to the Futurist aesthetic, which was too heterodox for his poetic tastes. C. was best known as a playwright, and there is a fair amount of consensus around the idea that his finest piece is The Bird of Paradise (1920), despite majority opinion also agreeing that its grotesque elements do not conceal its bourgeois comedic nature.
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Corra, Bruno (pseudonym of Bruno Ginanni Corradini; Ravenna, June 9, 1892–Varese, November 20, 1976). Although he distanced himself from Futurism in the 1920s, publishing some rather unsophisticated novels and, particularly, earning renown as a dramatist, there were very few writers as important to the history of Marinetti’s movement. In 1912, C. (whose name, just like that of his brother, Arnaldo Ginna, was given to him by the important Futurist painter Giacomo Balla, who saw in them the embodiment of running and gymnastics) founded the magazine Il Centauro along with Mario Carli and Emilio Settimelli, signed the main Futurist manifestos, enthusiastically supported fascism from 1915 on, and created and codirected with Settimelli L’Italia Futurista in 1916. That same year, he collaborated with Balla and Marinetti on Vida futurista, the film produced and directed by Ginna of which all that remains are a few stills and a broad-strokes idea of the plot. Sam Dunn Is Dead, his “synthetic” Futurist novel, was published in 1915; it was followed by The Enamored Family (1919), Blonde Woman (1921), Yellow Marriages (1928), International Loves (1933), The Dazed House (1942), X-ray Eve (1944), Midnight Rose (1945), Full of Surprises (1949), and The Mystery Lover (1953), among others.
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Cuadra, Pablo Antonio (Managua, November 4, 1912–Managua, January 2, 2002). “He began with the avant-garde Songs of Birds and Women (1929–1931), followed by, in 1935, Nicaraguan Poems, in which he achieves a remarkable poetic version of popular life. Following that, his poetry took on more religious tones, losing some of its freshness but none of its quality, in the volumes Temporal Song (1943), The Book of Hours (1946–1954), the lovely Poems with Dusk on My Back (1949–1956), Garland of the Year (1957–1960), The Jaguar and the Moon (1960), where he recovers his country’s indigenous mythology, a subject he returns to in the masterpiece of his later years, Songs of Cifar (1971). In 1976 he published Those Faces in the Crowd, containing both short stories and poetry, and, in 1980, Seven Trees Against the Dusk. His Complete Poetic Works (1983–1991) fills nine volumes. Cuadra also wrote good prose. […] For the stage he created a little avant-garde piece, The Dance of the Bourgeois Bear (1942), and a Brechti
an social drama, Down the Paths Go the Peasants (1937), considered the culmination of Central American rural theater. His work as an essayist was abundant” (César Aira, Diccionario de autores latinoamericanos [Buenos Aires: Emecé, 2001], pp. 159–160).
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Fleuron, Svend (Keldby på Møn, January 4, 1874–Humlebæk, April 5, 1966). Athough he spent his youth following a military career and in 1941 stated he was “thrilled with war,” F. was, primarily, a lover of nature and animals, to whom he dedicated much of his work. A residential street in Søborg named after him in 1925 was renamed immediately after the war and the Danish Writers’ Association expelled him from their ranks: in both cases, due to his participation in the National Socialist Weimar Poets’ Gathering of 1941, from which his reputation never recovered.
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Folgore, Luciano (pseudonym of Omero Vecchi; Rome, June 18, 1888–Rome, May 24, 1966). Early Hour, his first book of poems (1908), adheres to the conventional poetic forms of the era; a year later, F. meets Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and becomes a Futurist: rarely has a book been repudiated by its author in a shorter amount of time, but its author, or at least his name, was also soon repudiated; his next book of poems, The Dawn Aflame (1910), was still signed by Omero Vecchi: two years later, in 1912, The Song of Motors and the poems included in the important Anthology of Futurist Poets were signed by “Luciano Folgore.” He also signed the manifesto “Synthetic Lyricism and Physical Sensation,” where he develops his poetics, with that name. He publishes in Lacerba, La Voce, La Diana, L’Italia Futurista, Avanscoperta, and Sic [sic], meets Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau, moves to Florence. In 1930 he compiles his poems in Poetries, and after World War II he opts for other literary forms, such as prose, and occasionally humor, drama, and parodic children’s poetry. Between 1930 and 1945 or 1946 is the most important period in F.’s life, though the author himself later tried to minimize its relevance: it was in those years that his publications included The Book of Epigrams (1932), The Colorful Trap (1934), Little Fables and Stray Lines (1934), Novellas in the Mirror: Parodies of D’Annunzio and Others (1935). He was a civil servant in the Ministry of Justice, and he was an accountant.
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Folicaldi, Alceo (Lugo, February 7, 1900–Lugo, January 4, 1952). At seventeen years of age, he met Marinetti and joined the Futurists. In 1919, he published Folders and, in 1926, Rainbow over the World, his most important book. Marinetti included it in his anthology The New Futurist Poets (1925) and always seems to have considered him one of his best students, but F. stopped publishing shortly after that date, as is known.
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Garassino, Michele (Arezzo, September 27, 1902–Rome, April 29, 2002). He was born into a prosperous Arezzo importing family; it may have been his mother who encouraged his literary vocation, which seems to have been precocious. In 1933, while studying literature at the University of Perugia, G. earned considerable prestige within the young local scene thanks to some poems of African inspiration published in various places and then in book form in 1934; in 1936 this was followed by another volume of poems published previously in the magazine Artecrazia. Throughout the following years, G. held minor posts in the Perugian fascist cultural institutions, but in 1939 he moved to Rome. That same year he published the book of poems Helpless Childhood and, two years later, in 1941, an essay entitled The Song of the Whip: Literature and Its Critics. After the July 19, 1943, bombing of Rome, G. returned to Perugia, where he was working on the launch of a new newspaper commissioned by the authorities of Salò when he was invited to the Fascist Writers’ Conference held in Pinerolo between April 20 and 23, 1945. He left the Social Republic shortly afterward, and, following a period of relative obscurity, already back in Rome, he became one of the most highly respected Italian literary critics of the 1950s and 1960s. G. liked pseudonyms, and, according to O. Zuliani’s memoirs, he used them profusely to review his own books in the press and to stoke controversies with himself in confrontations he didn’t always win; according to R. Rosà’s autobiography, G. could have (using another of his pseudonyms) made public the discovery that much of his work is inspired by the work of an obscure American writer named A. Maddow, although it’s hard to imagine that he wanted to unmask himself in that way. In the 1970s, G.’s luck took a sharp dive, and in the 1980s he was already basically forgotten. He spent his final years in a senior home in the Monte Sacro neighborhood in Rome. His papers remained in his apartment downtown until his death, shortly after his hundredth birthday; no one knows what happened to them after that.
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Gentilli, Filippo (Colle di Roio, December 24, 1894–L’Aquila, January 17, 1951). A true scourge of those aspiring to prosper at the expense of literature and of its readers, G. didn’t hesitate to criticize the bad practices of his contemporaries in the Italian press; his confrontations with Gabriele D’Annunzio and F. T. Marinetti are well known, as is his denunciation of G. Rossi for plagiarizing D’Annunzio. Among his many works—mostly historical dramas and essays—are Colloquy Among the Illustrious (1932) and The Spanish Fortress (1939), a book of poems that celebrates both the imposing building constructed in L’Aquila between 1534 and 1567 by order of Charles I of Spain, King of Naples, and the victory of Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. G. was a firm defender of the abolition of private property, from the safety offered him by the private property of several hectares and considerable rent profits; his death—which occurred, according to witnesses, during a fit of laughter over dinner in his home—thwarted his first trip to the Soviet Union, planned for that year: at the end of his life, G. was a profound admirer of Josef Stalin.
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Ginna, Arnaldo (pseudonym of Arnaldo Ginanni Corradini; Ravenna, May 7, 1890–Rome, September 26, 1982). The experimental short films that G. made between 1910 and 1912 in collaboration with his brother, B. Corra, were lost in a bombing of Milan during World War II; it is known that in them G. experimented with what he termed “cinepittura”: the application of colors onto untreated film celluloid, in a succession of images accompanied by abstract music G. himself composed; also lost is the film Vita futurista (1916), in which G. collaborated with Marinetti, Giacomo Balla, and, once again, with his brother. He wrote pieces of “synthetic theater,” manifestos, prose, political texts; he published in magazines such as Roma Futurista, L’Impero, and Futurismo; in that final one he published his work The Future Man: prior to that he published The Locomotive with Trousers, which included a prologue by B. Corra and illustrations by R. Rosà. In 1938 he signed, with Marinetti, the manifesto “Cinematography,” after which he focused less on his artistic production and more on occultism, a subject that had always interested him, highlighting it in the context of Futurism, usually concentrating on the most material aspect of the art. In addition to his esoteric works, which by their nature were not widely popular, G. was a painter and film critic.
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Govoni, Corrado (Tàmara, October 29, 1884–Lido dei Pini, October 20, 1965). He joined the Futurists in 1905, though he began publishing in 1903. Electric Poetry (1911) and Rarefications and Words in Freedom (1915) are the clearest examples of his adherence to Futurism, which was nonetheless superficial. In 1922 he took a job at the Ministry of Popular Culture and later held significant posts in professional institutions such as the National Union of Writers and Authors, always with the support of Benito Mussolini, to whom he dedicated a laudatory poem. However, the execution of his son Aladino in the Ardeatine Massacre on March 24, 1944, caused him to break with fascism. G. continued to develop his solid, prolific body of poetic, dramatic, and prose work until his death but, by its very nature, the standout book in his oeuvre is the one dedicated to his son and to his former convictions, Aladino: A Lament for My Dead Son (1946).
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