Emilio Villa (

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, 21 September 1914 – Rieti, 14 January 2003) was an Italian poet, visual artist, translator, art critic and Bible scholar.p. ii, Siracusa, Dominic Edward. 2014. ''Emilio Villa: Poet of Biblical Proportions: A Dissertation and Translation''. UCLA doctoral dissertation. His poems reflected his knowledge of modern and ancient languages, including Italian, French, English, Latin, Greek, Sumerian, and Akkadian. Emilio Villa is considered the forerunner of the neo-avant-garde, of the Group 63 and of the Novissimi. It is important to remember his commitment to bring out personalities such as Alberto Burri, Mirko Basaldella, Gastone Novelli and, more recently, Claudio Parmiggiani, Mimmo Paladino and Gino De Dominicis.

Life

Emilio Villa was an artist, poet, biblical scholar, intellectual, founder of magazines and cultural initiatives, promoter of artistic talents and firm supporter of avant-garde values. Milanese seminarian, he moved to San Paolo (Brazil). There, in addition to founding magazines such as Habitat, he knows the texts of Caillois inherent to natural and primitive writing. Thanks to Noigandres he learns concrete poetry and themes in painting still unknown to the Italian environment. Most of Villa's writing were printed by small publishing houses throughout Italy, and many are unavailable today. He translated the Babylonian creation epic, '' Enuma Elis'', Homer's ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...

'', and several books of the Hebrew Scriptures, including the first five books of Moses (

Pentateuch The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

Job Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...

Proverbs A proverb (from la, proverbium) is a simple and insightful, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and use formulaic language. A proverbial phrase or a proverbia ...

, and Song of Songs. In 1950, Villa moved to Brazil, where he became involved with the Brazilian " concrete poets"

Haroldo de Campos Haroldo Eurico Browne de Campos (19 August 1929 – 16 August 2003) was a Brazilian poet, critic, professor and translator. He is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in Brazilian literature since 1950. Biography He did his secon ...

and

Augusto de Campos Augusto de Campos (born 14 February 1931, São Paulo) is a Brazilian writer who (with his brother Haroldo de Campos) was a founder of the Concrete poetry movement in Brazil. He is also a translator, music critic and visual artist. Work In 1952 ...

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...

. He later returned to Rome where he got involved with the local art scene, working with artists such as Alberto Burri, Sante Monachesi,

Mario Schifano Mario Schifano (20 September 1934, Khoms, Libya – 26 January 1998, Rome, Italy) was an Italian painter and collagist of the Postmodern tradition. He also achieved some renown as a film-maker and rock musician. He is considered to be one of th ...

and later

Gino De Dominicis Gino De Dominicis (Ancona, 1947 – Rome, 29 November 1998) was an Italian artist. Controversial protagonist of Italian art after the Second World War, he used various techniques and defined himself as a painter, sculptor, philosopher and arc ...

. Allergic to the Ytalyana language (withholding of slavery), he tries to make dead languages interact with living ones structured with a deep etymological knowledge. He also works with great international artists such as Mark Rothko, Marcel Duchamp, Matta, and with other Italians such as Mario Schifano, Patrizia Vicinelli, Giulio Turcato and Francesco Lo Savio. He publishes Il Frontespizio in Il Meridiano and in Letteratura. You collaborate with Malebolge, Tam Tam, Baobab, Ana Etcetera, Documento-Sud, Linea-Sud, Continuum (see the biographical card compiled on 11/27/2013 by Aldo Tagliaferri (published biographer of E.V.) in "discussion"). The largest collection of Emilio Villa's material, curated by Aldo Tagliaferri, is found in the archive of the Museo della Carale Accattino in Ivrea. From 6 August to 19 September 2021 in Rome, Appia Antica Archaeological Park, Capo di Bove Complex, the exhibition An Atlas of new art was held. Emilio Villa and the Appia Antica which traces the history, little known but truly fascinating, of the revolutionary art gallery that was based on the Appia Antica between the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s. With the art gallery, a new, experimental contemporary art magazine was also born, published by Liana Sisti and Mario Ricci, directed by Emilio Villa (1914-2003) and entitled "Appia Antica. Atlas of new art ". Villa died in Rieti in 2003.

Poetic statement

Emilio Villa promoted his texts in semi-clandestine ways (pursuing avant-garde directives, against bargain publishing, for a publishing industry totally free from power games) implementing - without compromise - a conscious dispersion of his texts. His writing proceeded tirelessly against the mechanistic topicality of supermarket literature and the laziness of a certain type of experimentalism.

References

*Renello, Gian Paolo. 2007. ''Segnare un secolo. Emilio Villa: la parola, l’immagine''. Rome, DeriveApprodi. *Campi, Enzo. 2013. ''Parabol(ich)e dell’ultimo giorno. Per Emilio Villa.'' Milan, Dotcom Press.

Notes

External links

*http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/emilio-villa {{DEFAULTSORT:Villa, Emilio Italian male poets Italian art critics Italian artists Translators of the Bible into Italian 1914 births 2003 deaths 20th-century Italian poets 20th-century Italian translators 20th-century Italian male writers Italian male non-fiction writers