Renzo Novatore

Abele Ricieri Ferrari (May 12, 1890 – November 29, 1922), better known by the pen name Renzo Novatore, was an Italian individualist anarchist, illegalist and anti-fascist poet, philosopher and militant, now mostly known for his posthumously published book Toward the Creative Nothing (Verso il nulla creatore) and associated with ultra-modernist trends of futurism. His thought was influenced by Max Stirner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georges Palante, Oscar Wilde, Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Schopenhauer and Charles Baudelaire.

Biography Background Abele Ricieri Ferrari was born in Arcola, Liguria, Italy on May 12, 1890, in a poor peasant family. He did not adjust to school discipline and quit in the first year, never coming back after that. While he worked in his father's farm, he self-educated with an emphasis on poetry and philosophy. Around his town, he was surrounded by a vibrant anarchist scene, which he started to come close to.

Writing and action He discovered Max Stirner, Errico Malatesta, Peter Kropotkin, Henrik Ibsen, and Friedrich Nietzsche, whom Novatore often quoted. From 1908 on, he embraced individualist anarchism. He was close friends with Enzo Martucci and Bruno Filippi. Renzo Novatore wrote for many anarchist papers (Cronaca Libertaria, Il Libertario, Iconoclastal, Gli Scamiciati, Nichilismo, Pagine Libere) where he debated with other anarchists (among them Camillo Berneri). He published a magazine, Vertice, which has been lost apart from few articles.

Death In May 1919, the city of La Spezia fell under the control of a self-proclaimed Revolutionary Committee, and Novatore fought alongside it. On June 30, 1919, he was hidden in a hut in the country near the city of Sarzana. A farmer told the police about him, and he was sentenced to ten years in prison, but was released in a general amnesty a few months later. He decided to go underground as fascism rose in Italy, and in 1922, he joined the gang of the famous robber of anarchist inspiration Sante Pollastro.

Renzo Novatore has received attention recently in anarcho-Nihilism and insurrectionary anarchism as can be seen in the writings of Wolfi Landstreicher. In his introduction to "Towards the Creative Nothing" by Renzo Novatore, Landstreicher writes "It is difficult to find anarchist works in English that are at the same time "individualist" and explicitly revolutionary, that emphasize the centrality of the aim of individual self-determination to a revolution that will "communalize material wealth" as it will "individualize spiritual wealth". For this and other reasons, I chose to translate Toward the Creative Nothing by Renzo Novatore and publish several of his shorter pieces." In an article called "Whither now? Some thoughts on creating anarchy" Wolfi Landstreicher writing as Feral Faun says "Then we can cease to be merely on the margins of society and will each, as unique wild beings, become the center of an insurrectionary project that may destroy civilization and create a world in which we freely live, relate and create as our unique desires move us. We will become – to quote Renzo Novatore again – "a shadow eclipsing any form of society which can exist under the sun."