People From Piedmont

"Sempre il miglior non è il parer primiero."

"Spesso è da forte, Più che il morire, il vivere."

"Che amar chi t'odia, ell'è impossibil cosa."

"Constructions of a-rhythmical forms, the clash between concrete and abstract forms.. ..The acute angle is passionate and dynamic, expressing will and a penetrating force."

"I have said that Marinetti was.. ..exceptionally gifted, and I should add that I never saw him twiddling his thumbs even for ten minutes.. ..beside his desk he often kept piles of books in which he would write dedications.. ..invariably with the purpose of spreading the word about Futurism."

"Stumbling into the midst of anarchists, barely 18 years old, I too started to dream of 'inevitable changes, inhuman society, free love', etc."

"I was walking along the Boulevard des Italiens [in February 1912, during a group exhibition of Futurist painters in Paris] when, as I passed in front of a newspaper stand, I had the pleasant surprise of seeing on the front page of the Journal the reproduction of my picture 'The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli'."

"The idea for this picture came to me one winter's night as I was leaving La Scala. In the foreground there is a snow sweeper with a few couples, men in top hats and elegant ladies. I think that this canvas, which is totally unknown in Italy, is one of the paintings where I best represented the concept that I had the time about my art."

"Boccioni, Russolo and I all met in the Porta Vittoria café [in Milan, Italy], close to where we all lived, and we enthusiastically outlined a draft of our appeal [the Manifesto of Futurist Painters, late February, 1910]. The final version was somewhat laborious; we worked on it all day, all three of us and finished it that evening with Marinetti and the help of Decio Cinti, the group's secretary."

"He (Picasso, ed.) is almost one of us [the Futurists]."

"Boccioni and I were swiftly persuaded that with this show in Paris we were staking our all; for a flop would have meant kissing our fine aspirations goodbye. This is why we decided to go to Paris, to see what the art situation there was like."

"We [The Futurists] stand for a use of colour free from the imitation of objects and things as coloured objects. We stand for an aerial vision in which the material of colour is expressed in all of the manifold possibilities our subjectivity can create."

"..that dizzy seething of forms and acoustic lights, rowdy and smelly [visible in the paintings at the Futurist exhibition, February 1912 in Paris].. ..to obtain this total painting which calls for the active cooperation of all the senses: painting of the plastic mood of the universal, you have to paint the way drunkards sing and vomit, sounds, noises and smells."

"This bubbling and whirling of forms and lights, composed of sounds, noises, and smells has been partly achieved by me in my 'Anarchical funeral' [the painting Carra painted ca 1910-1911, ed.].. ..by Umberto Boccioni in his 'States of Minds' and 'Forces of a Street' [both paintings Boccioni painted in 1911], by Russolo in 'Rebellion' (1911) and Severini in 'Pan-Pan [the first version, Severini painted in 1909-1911], paintings which were violently discussed at our first Paris exhibition in 1912."

"When we talk of architecture, people usually think of something static; this is wrong. What we are thinking of is an architecture similar to the dynamic and musical architecture achieved by the Futurist musician Pratella. Architecture is found in the movement of colours, of smoke from a chimney and in metallic structures, when they are expressed in states of mind which are violent and chaotic."

"Reds, rrrrreds, the rrrrreddest rrrrreds that shouuuuuuut."

"[paintings as] the plastic equivalent of the sounds, noises and smells found in theaters, music-halls, cinemas, brothels, railways station, ports."

"We insist that our concept of perspective is the total antitheses of all static perspective. It is dynamic and chaotic in application, producing in the mind of the observer a veritable mass of plastic emotions."

"The Cubists, to be objective, restrict themselves to considering things by turning around them, to produce their geometric writing. So they remain at a stage of intelligence which sees everything and feels nothing, which brings everything to a standstill in order to describe everything. We Futurists are trying, on the contrary, with the power of intuition, to place ourselves at the very center of things, in such a way that our ego forms with their own uniqueness a single complex. We thus give plastic planes a plastic expansion in space, obtaining this feeling of something in perpetual motion which is peculiar to everything living."

"If it had not been for these things, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as now we do by accident. Our words — our lives — our pains — nothing! The taking of our lives — lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish-peddler — all! That last moment belongs to us — that agony is our triumph."

"Sacco was guilty but Vanzetti was innocent."

"I wish to say to you that I am innocent. I have never done a crime, some sins, but never any crime. I thank you for everything you have done for me. I am innocent of all crime, not only this one, but of all, all. I am an innocent man. I now wish to forgive some people for what they are doing to me."

"I did not spittel a drop of blood, or steal a cent in all my life."

"Sir, give me a single battalion of the Royal Carabineers and I will drive these upstarts into the sea."

"C'è un veleno che corrode le dittature: l'incenso. La rovina delle dittature sono i ras osannanti."

"Se orgoglio ho io, è quello di aver sempre servito fedelmente e con devozione illimitata voi, Duce."

"Io sono un militare e non so nulla di correnti politiche."

"Non posso abbandonarmi a voli di fantasia perché ciò è contrario alla mia natura."

"Io i miei nemici li strangolo lentamente col guanto di velluto."

"(A Mussolini) Vostra Eccellenza può contare ora e sempre sulla mia completa e assoluta devozione."

"Non sono mai stato un generale ribelle e l'ho dimostrato sino all'ultimo."

"Io ho conquistato all'Italia un impero e Mussolini l'ha buttato via."

"Il soldato è come il monaco, per cui l'ordine si chiama obbedienza."

"When Mussolini decided on war he did not take my advice or that of any other Army chief. In August 1939 the Duce had not been so sure about the invincibility of the Germans, and he told us that he had sought to persuade Hitler not to act."

"The Germans will make a few scattered attacks, then go away. The Romans will enjoy a fine September."

"By this act, all ties with the dreadful past are broken, and my government will be proud to be able to march with you on to the inevitable victory."

"I think if we call in the experts we can draw up the full scheme, with the rallying points arranged."

"Militarily it was impossible to invade with the dispositions we had made. We had only seven divisions in Albania. Two of them were necessary to hold the Albanian population from going into revolt. Two others were in reserve. That left us three divisions with which to undertake an offensive. Against us, the Greeks disposed of fifteen divisions. We might have been able to undertake an offensive had those figures been reversed."

"There is no doubt that Jacomoni and Visconti Prasca have a large share of the responsibility in the Albanian affair, but the real blame must be sought elsewhere. It lies entirely with the Duce's command. This is a command that he, the Duce, cannot hold. Let him leave everything to us, and when things go wrong let him punish those responsible."

"If I announce the armistice and the Americans don't send sufficient reinforcements and don't land near Rome, the Germans will seize the city and put in a puppet fascist government."

"The assault on Malta will cost us many casualties… But I am the one who wants it because I consider it absolutely essential for the future development of the war. If we take Malta, Libya will be safe. If not, the situation of the colony will always be precarious."

"The Duce told me that he foresaw the possibility of a conflict between Germany and Russia. He said that we could not stay out of this because it involved the struggle against communism. It was, therefore, necessary to make arrangements for the bringing together between Ljubljana and Zagreb of a motorized division, of an armored division, and of the grenadier division."

"I am very much afraid that the loss of Cyrenaica will have serious political consequences for the Duce."

"I've been in contact with Marshal Badoglio. We agree that Italy must be saved from the abyss toward which Fascism is driving her. If we depose Mussolini, however, the new government should do nothing drastic to upset Hitler until we can secretly negotiate an armistice with the Allies."

"We would have to make clear to our German ally our disagreement on three points: treatment of the occupied countries, excesses towards the Jews, and relations with the Papacy. One ought to try to create a true European federation respectful of each nationality."

"1. 0 is a number. 2. The immediate successor of a number is also a number. 3. 0 is not the immediate successor of any number. 4. No two numbers have the same immediate successor. 5. Any property belonging to 0 and to the immediate successor of any number that also has that property belongs to all numbers."

"Quaestiones, quae ad mathematicae fundamenta pertinent, etsi hisce temporibus a multis tractatae, satisfacienti solutione et adhuc carent. Hic difficultas maxime en sermonis ambiguitate oritur. Quare summi interest verba ipsa, quibus utimur attente perpendere."

"1. Zero is a number. 2. The successor of any number is another number. 3. There are no two numbers with the same successor. 4. Zero is not the successor of a number. 5. Every property of zero, which belongs to the successor of every number with this property, belongs to all numbers."

"Peano — whether in Logic or in Mathematics — never worked with pure symbolism — he always required that the primitive symbols introduced represent intuitive ideas to be explained with ordinary language."

"I am fascinated by his gentle personality, his ability to attract lifelong disciples, his tolerance of human weakness, his perennial optimism. … Peano may not only be classified as a 19th century mathematician and logician, but because of his originality and influence, must be judged one of the great scientists of that century."