Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944) was an influential Italian writer and the founder of the Futurist Movement, which emerged in the early 20th century. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, to Italian parents, Marinetti's literary career began in his youth, and he published his first collection of poetry in 1902. His landmark manifesto, "Manifesto of Futurism," was published in 1909 in the French newspaper Le Figaro, marking the official launch of a movement that celebrated technology, speed, and modernity while rejecting traditional values and institutions. Marinetti's work was characterized by a unique style that favored nouns and infinitive verbs, often devoid of punctuation, reflecting the movement's embrace of dynamism and innovation.
Throughout his life, Marinetti was not only a prolific writer but also an active participant in military affairs, serving in various conflicts, including World War I. In addition to his literary contributions, he engaged in public advocacy for Futurism through performances and events. His marriage to painter and writer Benedetta Cappa produced three daughters, and he continued to publish extensively until his death in 1944. Marinetti's legacy lies in his role in reshaping modern literature and paving the way for subsequent movements such as Dadaism and Surrealism, making him a significant figure in the evolution of 20th-century art and literature.
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Subject Terms
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Founder of the Futurist Movement
- Born: December 22, 1876
- Birthplace: Alexandria, Egypt
- Died: December 2, 1944
- Place of death: Bellagio, Italy
Biography
Born Emilio Angelo Carlo Marinetti on December 22, 1876, in Alexandria, Egypt, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was the son of Italian parents. His father, a lawyer, was Enrico Marinetti. His mother, Amalia Grolli Marinetti, was the daughter of a literature professor. As a youth, Filippo played the piano and attended Saint François Xavier, a French Jesuit school, from 1888 until 1893, when he was expelled for sharing the novels of Émile Zola with his classmates. At this time he founded the literary journal Le Papyrus. In 1893, he received his baccalaureate from the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1984, his family moved to Milan, and he entered the University of Pavia as a law student. He transferred to the University of Genoa, where he studied law from 1894 until 1899.
Marinetti’s early work was written in French. His first collection of poetry, La Conquête des étoiles (1902; conquest of the stars), published in 1902, was translated into Italian in 1920. When his father died in 1907, Marinetti inherited a fortune. He founded the Italian Futurist Movement on February 20, 1909, when he published “Manifest du Futurisme” in the French newspaper Le Figaro. His first novel, Mafarka il futuriste (1910; Mafarka the futurist), was banned for obscenity and lauded by critics as his best work. The novel solidified the movement, which glorified technology, mechanization, speed, the future, and war; and rejected anything connected to the past, tradition, and conservative institutions. The movement’s poetics privileged nouns and infinitive verbs and eschewed punctuation and both grammatical and logical connections. Marinetti actively promoted the movement with advertisement, organized readings, frequent travel, and highly publicized events. As an activist, he was loud, aggressive, and controversial. In 1911, he published Le Futurisme, a collection of futurist manifestos. In 1923, he married Benedetta Cappa, a painter and a writer. They had three daughters: Vittoria, Ala, and Luce.
Marinetti also pursued a career in the military. From 1911 until 1914, he served as a war correspondent in Libya and the Balklans; from 1914 until 1918, he served as an officer in World War I; in 1935, at the age of fifty-nine, he volunteered for the new Fascist colonial wars in Ethiopia; in 1942, following surgery for an ulcer, he volunteered on the Russian front. Weakened from the operation, he soon returned home to Bellagio, where he died December 2, 1944.
Although he published an extraordinary number of volumes of poetry, fiction, and drama, Marinetti is best recognized for his manifestos on futurism and his tireless promotion of the movement, which brought Italian letters into the twentieth century and paved the way for Dadaism and Surrealism.