Aldo Palazzeschi
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Aldo Palazzeschi (2 February, 1885, Florence - 17 August, 1974, Rome) was the pen name of Aldo Giurlani, an Italian novelist, poet, journalist and essayist. He was born to a well-off, bourgeois family in Florence, and studied accounting and acting before he published his first book of poetry, I cavalli bianchi (in English, The White Horses) in 1905 using his maternal grandmother's name as a pseudonym. After meeting Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, he became a fervent Futurist. However, he was never entirely ideologically aligned with the movement and had a falling out with the group over Italy's involvement in World War I, which he opposed. His "futurist period" (roughly the 1910s) was a very fecund time in which he published a series of works that cemented his reputation. Most notable of these is his novel Il codice di Perelà (translated into English as Man of Smoke) published in 1911. During the interwar era, his productivity lessened, as he became involved in journalism and other pursuits. Also during this time, he was a notable anti-Fascist. He returned with a series of novels in the late sixties and early seventies that resecured his place in the new, post-war avant-garde. He died in 1974 in his apartment in Rome. Today he is often considered an important influence on later Italian writers, especially those of the neoavanguardia in both prose and verse. His work is well noted by its grotesque and fantastic elements.
