Auro D'Alba

Umberto Bottone OCI OSSML (14 March 1888 – 15 April 1965), better known by the pen name of Auro D'Alba, was an Italian writer, political activist and journalist.

Biography

He was born at Schiavi di Abruzzo in the Province of Chieti. Initially a follower of D'Annunzio, he debuted with Lumi d'argento (1905), a collection of poems with crepuscular tones. This was followed in 1910 by the collection Corde ai fianchi, some of whose lyrics were declaimed by Marinetti during his famous Futurist evenings. In 1913 he personally met Marinetti and joined the Futurist movement, composing poems such as Baionette (Bayonets) and collaborating with the magazine Poesia. From 1916 he decided to sign his entire subsequent production under the pseudonym "Auro D'Alba", starting with his plays I carri and Il cambio, which were included in the anthology Teatro futurista sintetico. The collection of novellas in verse Canzoni della guerra (Songs of War) dates back to 1916 and was followed by A l'alpeggio, bozzetti frontiera with a woodcut on the cover by Mario Bellusi, published in 1917.

In an effort to break with Italian literary tradition, he collaborated from 1915 to 1917 with the Neapolitan Gherardo Marone's avant-garde-inspired magazine La Diana. He enlisted and fought at the front in World War I, earning a silver medal and a war cross.

In 1919 he left the Futurist movement, joined the Fasces of Combat and became a contributor to Il Popolo d'Italia; he founded his own group called La Guascona, participating in several actions and the march on Rome. His enthusiasm for Mussolini's regime led him to devote himself above all to the poetics of the so-called ‘fascist intoxication’: hymns such as Battaglioni M, Preghiera del legionario prima della battaglia and Inno della SS italiana belong to this period, as well as the Preghiera del vigile del fuoco of 1940. These compositions earned him the title of ‘official poet of the militia’.

In 1930, the novel Our Family, which, like the rest of his production in the 1930s, extolled the family, discipline, colonisation and war, was quite successful. A private affair, however, caused a turning point in his literary production: the suicide of his 18-year-old daughter in 1932 led to his conversion to Catholicism and the introduction of religious themes in his work. These were in fact also used in a political key to propagandise the conciliation between the government and the Catholic Church, in the wake of the recent stipulation of the Lateran Pacts.

D'Alba was awarded with high honours, such as being appointed consul-general to head the press office of the Voluntary Militia for National Security (MVSN) and later lieutenant-general.

At the end of the war he was a contributor to Il Popolo and later, from 1947 to 1965, to the Sunday edition of L'Osservatore Romano, signing himself as "Benigno". At the same time he published Riù (1949) and I tetti hanno freddo (1954), two collections of poems with a religious theme, and the autobiography Formato tessera (1956).

Auro D'Alba died in Rome.

References

• Fiumi, Lionello (1934). "Auro D’Alba." In: Mélanges de philologie, d histoire et de littérature offerts & Henri Hauvette. Paris: Les Presses frangaises, pp. 805–13.
• Manzella Frontini, G. (1927). Auro D'Alba. Palermo: Edizioni de L'Arte fascista.
• Rizzotti Raus, Enrica (1971). "Bottone, Umberto." In: Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Vol. 13. Roma: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
• Sigillino, Niccolò (1931). Auro D'Alba. Roma: Libreria del Littorio.
• Tucci, Alessandro (2010). Auro D'Alba: futurista inquieto. Vasto: Q Edizioni.
• Urbani, Giuseppe (1927). Un poeta dell'Italia Nuova: Auro D'Alba : preceduto da un saggio sul tema Fascismo e Bellezza. Pisa: Società Tipografica Editrice.
• Zampieri, Ugo (1918). Auro d'Alba e Luciano Folgore: futurismo e avanguardismo. Napoli: Crociere barbare.

External links

• Works by Auro D'Alba at Open Library