Primo Conti nelle Imbottigliature (1917): Immagini dai fronti interni

Overview & Synopsis

Primo Conti’s Imbottigliature (1917) is the result of multiple contemporary influences. Even though it is manifestly a futuristic collection, Imbottigliature is issued from the Florentine Futurism of the second half of 1910, which was always based on bellicose rhetoric, while the war itself had changed status. The conflict was no longer a futuristic perspective projected into the future, but a kind of swamp in which Europe had been immobilized for two or three years – the action was blurred by the over-dimension of the waiting. Imbottigliature, literally « put into glass bottle », thus metaphorise the static atmosphere of Florence, city of the home front: war is present, but distant, blurred by a speech that is no longer only poetically words-in-freedom or rhetorically interventist. The writing then slides towards an inner front, more interested in spiritual exploration, conciliating collectivizing impulses with individual ones.