Ennio Valentinelli: a Forgotten Futurist

First Encounters with Futurism Valentinelli was born in 1894 in Villa Lagarina, just outside Rovereto in Trentino, and was one of the thousands of italiani d'Austria, Italianspeaking citizens of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. [...]1912, Valentinelli was a student at the Scuola Reale Regina Elisabetta, which was a hotbed of young irredentists.7 One of his classmates was Damiano Chiesa, who would become, alongside Cesare Battisti, one of Italy's most prominent irredentist martyrs, when he was executed by the Austrians in 1916 for high treason due to his decision to volunteer for the Italian Army.8 Another boy who attended the school at the same time described how the students were forced to attend target practice under the tutelage of the Austrian army, but expressed their disapproval by singing the "Inno a Garibaldi" under their breath.9 On 2 November 1912, all secondary school students in Rovereto were requested to go on strike in solidarity with the Triestine and Trentino students in Innsbruck, who were campaigning for an Italian law faculty at the university,10 and it is highly likely that Valentinelli participated in this action.\n" Similarly, the nighttime sentryduty described in Sentinella (published on 11 March 1917) is very far removed from the hopeful tone of Vedetta + Alba, his first composition for L'Italia Futurista.