Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

22 December 1876 (Alexandria, Egypt) - 2 December 1944 (Bellagio, Italy). The founding father of the Futurist movement.

Life of Marinetti

Marinetti was born as first child to Amalia Grolli, a literature scholar's daughter and Enrico Marinetti, an advocat. Within the beneficial intellectual setting, Marinetti not only profited from his father's relations to Egyptian high society members but also from an education in Egypt, France, Italy and Switzerland. 1888 at the age of 12, he enters the Jesuit "Saint François Xavier College" in France where he discovers his passion for Literature, especially French and Italian writers, as for instance Émile Zola, Charles Baudelaire or Gabriele D'Annunzio. Due to his non-conformist behaviour, according to the Jesuits, he is expelled from college. 1893 he moves to Paris in order to do his baccalauréat des lettres. After his graduation he moves to Milan where his family had moved to before to initiate his university studies at Pavia and Genoa where he graduates on 14 July 1899 in jurisprudence.

During his studies, he deepens his interest for literature and writing. On 20 September 1898 he collaborates with the Italian-French journal Anthologie-Revue where he publishes the little poem "Les Vieux Marins" (engl. "The Old Mariners"). In 1900, he goes on a tour of conferences around Italy in order to spread his writings. Thus, he becomes increasingly focused on his writing career. Therefore, his appartment in Via Veneto 2 in Milan becomes the creative centre for some Futurists. At the same place he is given his first published book La conquête des Étoiles (engl. The Conquest of the Stars) in 1902. After his mother's death in the same year he goes on another tour around Italy on conferences and publishes more pieces of writing in the following years. He is able to expand his relations in a well-established network in the high society of Milan which attracts other writers to come on a visit to him. 1905 he founds the journal Poesia in which he publishes writings written in his 1907 developed "verso libero" (engl. free verse) style. His topics deal with technological progress (due to the lately increased productions and innovations in the automobile and aeronautic industries), an aggressive fight against all "past" structures and dynamic and progressive experiences in metropolitan life among mass societies.

The Founding of Futurism

Marinetti creates the literary school of Futurism with the publication of his First "Manifesto del Futurismo" in the French newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February 1909. Further important works follow in the years with his second manifesto "Uccidiamo il chiaro di luna" (engl. "Let's kill the clear of the light"), the novel Mafarka il futurista (1910) and his scenic presentation La donna è mobile which was later renamed Sexual Electricity. Throughout the following years, the movement around Marinetti manages to enlarge and also expand towards other domains, such as art and music. Out of this conflation awakes the idea of futurist soirees that take place in public theatres or open spaces which also involve violent actions and demonstrations (e.g. the throwing of flyers of the manifesto against "pastist" Venice from the clocktower of St Mark's Square in Venice).

In 1912-1914 he publishes other works that are constitutive for the Futurist movement. Among these are the "Manifesto Tecnico della letteratura" (1912), "Words in freedom" (1913) and the sound poem "Zang Tumb Tumb"(1914). Later on, he also tries to distribute his ideas on a tour around Russia where Italian and Russian Futurists negotiate their positions within the global movement.

Marinetti and War

The idea of war is highly incorporated in Marinetti's thinking. Therefore, he is delighted by the fight against the old monarchs in the First World War which he regards as the only hygienic purification to the world and also participates in various war combats. After the war, he can propagate his ideology even better in public when the Futurist movement joins Fascism and, hence, adds a political dimension of the futurist literature to the public sphere. Marinetti begins to present himself in public together with Mussolini. However, he is hardly accepted among the Fascist movement. In 1918, he meets Benedetta Cappa who he marries in 1923. Together they move to Rome from where the couple starts another conference tour around South America. Later on, they will have three daughters.

His last important phase in the beginning thirties was called "aeropoetics" where he represents dynamic experiences of flying in the air. He dies on 2 December 1944 due to a cardiac arrest.

Sources

Paglia, Luigi. Invito alla letteratura di Marinetti. Milan: Ugo Mursia, 1977.

Salaris, Claudia. Marinetti: Arte e vita futurista. Roma: Riuniti, 1997.

"Filippo Tommaso Marinetti." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Ed. Britannica Academic. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc.2015. 29 Dec. 2015. <http://academic.eb.com/EBchecked/topic/365371/Filippo-Tommaso-Marinetti>.