Verso il nulla creatore [Toward the Creative Nothing]. West NY, NJ: Spec. Ed Virginio De Martin, 1939.

06-22_A.jpg
06-22_B.jpg

Title

Verso il nulla creatore [Toward the Creative Nothing]. West NY, NJ: Spec. Ed Virginio De Martin, 1939.

Description

The cover and, such as it is, title page state “Special Edition Edited by Virginio De Martin | Publisher of "Supermen Literature," West New York, NJ 1939”; the cover also states at the top “superuomo: e: iconoclasta” (Superman and iconoclast).

Novatore (b. Liguria, 1890 - d. Genoa, 1922) was a prime exponent of a Nietzschean individual anarchism, a philosophy that attacked Christianity and also socialism, democracy and fascism for their spiritual emptiness. This philosophy was somewhat akin to Galleani’s non-organizational anarchism but without the bombs, yet certainly bearing little relation to the anarchism of the organizational kind that led to the union activity of syndicalism or revolutionary communism. 

Novatore, whose birth name was Abele Rizieri Ferrari, calls for a personal “destructive revolution” in this work, based on the ideas, dreams and desires of the “mighty I,” while recognizing that a real revolution had to be more than just a personal one. He is also associated with ultra-modernist trends of futurism. He justified a refusal to work and his personal philosophy of life led him to believe that he had the right to expropriate from the rich what he needed for his daily survival; using force wasn't a problem for him.

He was influenced by the ideas of Max Stirner, Errico Malatesta, Peter Kropotkin, Henrik Ibsen, Oscar Wilde and Friederich Nietzsche. But he found that all existing political movements doomed the individual to personal mediocrity.

This text was published after Novatore’s death. I can find no information about Virginio de Martin, the publisher, or his "Supermen Literature" publishing venture, and that he was editor of the serial publication, The "Superman" Bulletin.

There is no evidence that Novatore, who was ambushed by carabinieri near Genoa in 1922, ever came to America.

Creator

Renzo Novatore

Publisher

Spec. Ed Virginio De Martin

Date

1939

Format

24 x 15cm; 40 p.

Language

Italian

Citation

Renzo Novatore, “Verso il nulla creatore [Toward the Creative Nothing]. West NY, NJ: Spec. Ed Virginio De Martin, 1939.,” Italian-Language American Imprints: The Periconi Collection, accessed April 27, 2024, https://italianamericanimprints.omeka.net/items/show/230.

Output Formats

Geolocation

Comments

Allowed tags: <p>, <a>, <em>, <strong>, <ul>, <ol>, <li>