"The cavern was dark and the gathering was great.

In our midst, a puppet, the object of the wake.

We stood on either side of it, myself and Death,

With each one tugging at an arm. My final breath



Was encased in that flaccid, inanimate mask!

With my whole body I bent, as against a blast

Of icy wind, fighting Death with all my vigor,

Which blazed at the thought of emerging the victor.

If I failed in my effort, I knew I was lost;

My will to live grew tense—my life would be the cost.



But then Death ripped the miserable puppet in half—

I held on to my part, The crowd burst out in laugh-

ter. Then seizing its limp, mutilated trophy,

Death fled… and I now feared for my own destiny.



After Death disappeared, the crowd slowly vanished

Before my empty eyes. As the noise diminished,

I looked at my half of the puppet with a moan,

In the cavern grown dark where I stood all alone."
-Valentine De Saint Point
"The Puppet and Death"

Marinetti fighting a duel with the Charles Henri Hirsch, in Rome, April 30, 1924.

"The combatants were MM. Charles Henri Hirsch, the novelist and dramatic critic, and F.T. Marinetti, the Franco-Italian poet and playwright. Their desperate fight was a result of an alteration during a performance of M. Marinetti’s play, Le Roi Bombance.

The swords flashed dazzlingly in the sunshine, and the two men, as they gained or gave ground, looked for all the world like fighting cocks.

In the tenth encounter there was an exciting moment when M. Hirsch’s sword snapped. The seconds threw up M. Marinetti’s sword just in time. In the eleventh encounter M. Hirsch was wounded in the right forearm, the cut being three quarters of an inch deep.

The seconds called a halt, but M. Hirsch insisted on the duel proceeding. The wound was therefore bound up, and the fight continued.

After the twelfth encounter it became obvious that M. Hirsch, owing to the stiffness of his wounded arm, was unable to properly use his sword. In view of his manifest inferiority the seconds insisted that the duel should cease."

“One day on the hotel stairs I met the aviator Guido Keller, the Commander's action secretary. I looked at this man with a strange face in which his black eyes shone very sharply, which scrutinized me from head to toe. When we were close, he held out his hand and we immediately started talking. [...] We talked about making a revolution that would begin to change the organization of the army, of abolishing the ranks above the captain, of recreating the ancient companies of fortune of Italian tradition, of taking the bravest as an exemplary type of the true Italian soldier and to change the uniform, abolishing the closed collar and the useless sword".

-Giovanni Comisso, My seasons, Longanesi, 1963

"It's you, Guido Keller, comrade who knows how to talk to the eagle and know how to persuade the chest, comrade who knows how to keep the eagle in prison and load the chest with patience, did you come to my bedside?"

-Gabriele D'Annunzio, The Italian wing is liberated, Rome, La Fionda, 1919

D'annunzio's signature

“Everything in life depends upon the eternally new. Man must either renew himself or die.”
-Gabriele D'annunzio

In the Italian province of Carnaro, music is a social and religious institution. [...] music, the language of ritual, has power, above all else, to exalt the achievement and the life of man. [...] In every commune of the province there will be a choral society and an orchestra subsidized by the State.
In the city of Fiume, the College of Aediles will be commissioned to erect a great concert hall, accommodating an audience of at least ten thousand with tiers of seats and ample space for choir and orchestra.
The great orchestral and choral celebrations will be entirely free — in the language of the Church — a gift of God.

(Charter of Carnaro, Music, Article n. 64)

Official Bulletin of the commander of Italian Fiume
"Italy is life!"- Gabriele D'annunzio

"If only we can give them faith that mountains can be moved, they will accept the illusion that mountains are moveable, and thus an illusion may become reality."
-Benito Mussolini

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1HJhS5Y5iw
The funeral of D'Annunzio