L’altalena dei sensi; Divinità spiraliche
This exceptional pairing brings together two rare Futurist poetry collections by Alceo Folicaldi, both published in Rome in 1934. L’altalena dei sensi establishes Folicaldi as a distinctive practitioner of free-word poetry within second-generation Futurism. The volume opens with an approving letter by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who praises the poet’s sensory and imaginative freedom. The accompanying Divinità spiraliche is the second part of a cycle that Folicaldi himself described as a tetralogy. In both books, conventional lyric form is disrupted through typographic dispersion, associative montage, and an intensely sensory vocabulary. For the bibliophile, the pair offers a rare document of late Futurist book culture, retaining the original wrappers and preserved in a later chemise and slipcase.
Quantity
Folicaldi, Alceo
L’altalena dei sensi; Divinità spiraliche
1934 | Rome | Edizioni Futuriste di Poesia
Together, these two original editions form a rare and coherent document of second-generation Italian Futurism. Their experimental texts, original wrappers, and direct connection with Marinetti give the ensemble exceptional significance.
This exceptional pairing brings together two rare Futurist poetry collections by Alceo Folicaldi, both published in Rome in 1934. L’altalena dei sensi establishes Folicaldi as a distinctive practitioner of free-word poetry within second-generation Futurism. The volume opens with an approving letter by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who praises the poet’s sensory and imaginative freedom. The accompanying Divinità spiraliche is the second part of a cycle that Folicaldi himself described as a tetralogy. In both books, conventional lyric form is disrupted through typographic dispersion, associative montage, and an intensely sensory vocabulary. For the bibliophile, the pair offers a rare document of late Futurist book culture, retaining the original wrappers and preserved in a later chemise and slipcase.
€610
Condition Report:
In-Depth Study
References & Bibliography
Format
In-8 (Octavo) approx. 20 × 26 cm
Edition Particulars
Two rare original editions, preserved together in a later chemise and slipcase.
Inscription
No inscription
Product DETAIL
L’altalena dei sensi is a collection of experimental poems opening with an untitled introductory poemetto. It is followed by the sections L’altalena elettrica, La cantilena satanica, Numeri di sole, and Deformazioni. The volume closes with a sequence of 53 free-word fragments. Rather than presenting a continuous narrative, it unfolds through sensations, moods, numbers, colours, music, desire, and urban impulses. Divinità spiraliche continues this non-linear poetics as the second part of Folicaldi’s Futurist tetralogy, following Nudità futuriste of 1933. Its poems combine mystical, bodily, and cosmic imagery with abrupt verbal conjunctions and spatially arranged text. Together, the books reveal Folicaldi’s attempt to connect private emotion with the experimental vocabulary of second-generation Futurism.
Ribemont-Dessaignes, Georges
Ariane
A remarkable copy of *Ariane*, published in the *Les Cahiers Nouveaux* series, inscribed with a poetic and enigmatic message by Ribemont-Dessaignes to Jacques Matarasso. This deluxe Japan paper edition was elegantly rebound in 1994 by Georges Leroux, in a restrained style that echoes the work’s Dadaist spirit.
Book
€1,100
Gracq, Julien
Au château d'Argol
Julien Gracq’s debut novel, issued by José Corti, sets a gothic castle on the Breton coast as the stage for a charged, almost dream-logic encounter between three figures. The prose is musical and image-rich, favouring symbolic landscapes and metaphysical weather. Born near Surrealism yet distinctly independent, the book establishes Gracq’s lucid enchantment from the start. For bibliophiles this is a key title: an early Corti publication, scarce in appealing condition, and the opening note of a major twentieth-century voice. Its limited print-run and initially slow reception add to the sense of discovery. This copy is on publisher’s stock.
Book
€610
Bousquet, Joë
Traduit du silence. Proses
Traduit du silence. Proses is one of Joë Bousquet’s rare pre-war publications, issued in the poetic series of Les Cahiers du Journal des Poètes. Its title already contains the central paradox of the book: writing as if translated from silence, seclusion and inward intensity. This copy is notable for its deluxe issue on Featherweight fort, numbered with the crowned-heart device, but above all for its signed autograph inscription to Jeanne and James Ducellier. The Ducelliers were among Bousquet’s closest confidants in Carcassonne and belonged to the circle where literature, friendship and surrealism converged. This is therefore not merely an early and refined edition, but a tangible document of a personal and artistic network. The book connects Bousquet’s enclosed room with the broader surrealist constellation of Max Ernst, Paul Éluard, Yves Tanguy and Raymond Roussel.
Book
€250
Éluard, Paul · PERET, Benjamin
152 Proverbes mis au goût du jour
With *152 Proverbes mis au goût du jour*, Paul Éluard and Benjamin Péret published in 1925 one of the most characteristic linguistic experiments of the first phase of organized Surrealism. The book takes one of the most familiar forms of collective wisdom, the proverb, and subjects it to systematic disruption. Familiar expressions are shifted, crossed and rewritten so that their apparently self-evident logic gives way to unexpected meanings. The collaboration brings together two central voices of the young Surrealist movement in a text where humour and poetic subversion are inseparable. The work appeared in the immediate orbit of *La Révolution surréaliste*, the periodical that from late 1924 served as a major organ of the movement. It is also bibliographically significant as the first title of the Éditions Surréalistes, recorded as Sebbag, no. 1 and also referenced as Lhermitte 236. This copy belongs to the ordinary issue on edition paper. As an early independent Surrealist publication, the book has both literary and documentary importance.
