Futurism before futurism

Abstract

In 1905 Giovanni Papini publishes Il crepuscolo dei filosofi and institutes a “proceeding against philosophy”. Based on the assumptions of pragmatism the author analyses critically the contributions of Kant, Hegel, Comte, Spencer, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, shaping an intellectual biography that reveals his idea of modernity. After the emergence of futurism Papini will declare his book “an essay of futurist philosophy” due to his aspect of “assault and destruction”. Other signs of prefuturism may be detected in Papini’s critical activism: 1 – the attack on the cult of Dante Alighieri (1905) that precedes Marinetti’s La divina commedia è un verminaio di glossatori” (1915); 2 – the critical vision of “dead cities” (1905) that antecipates the manifesto “Contro Venezia passatista” (1910); 3 – the analysis of cinematograph as a bearer of a new sensibility (1907) that predates by several years the futurist interest in the new art (1912- 1913). Although the differences between Papini’s ideas and those of Marinetti, specially regarding the relationship with the past, it is undeniable that both writers are engaged in the search for ways of renewal of Italian culture.