Apollinaire, a Pole whose real name was Kostrowitski, was born in Rome and lived in Italy until late childhood, when he went to France, where he remained until his death in 1919. He had a tremendous influence upon many of the young symbolist writers of Italy, comparable to that exercised by Stéphane Mallarmé on the young writers in the '80's and '90's. One of them wrote at the time of his death: "Hero of thought and of art, idealist, philosopher, genuine poet, prophetic theorist and critic, sublime soul, comrade, joyous, generous, he was also in the last years of his life a hero of humanity." The most important figure of the school has been Giovanni Papini, who has gathered about him in Florence a coterie which includes Ardengo Soffici, the painter, critic, and novelist; Aldo Palazzeschi, poet; Alberto Savinio, wanderer, musician, and litterateur; and a long list of names more or less ancillary to Marinetti, some of which I shall mention later. Papini, who is considered at length in another chapter, does not admit that he is a Futurist. As he puts it, he did not marry Futurism; it was for him one of many intellectual adventures, a mistress that left an indelible impression on him. He simply passed through Futurism's influence and at the same time gave momentum to the best of that school, to Palazzeschi, Govoni, Boccioni, Folgore. Then he proceeded alone, after having become persuaded that it had become too popular and consequently less refined and select, and after the hazardous and aristocratic little group had become a species of low, bigoted democracy into which any one could enter who dangled a rosary of incomprehensible words. He left it in company with Soffici and Palazzeschi and soon Carrà and others followed his example. Thus, on the death of Boccioni, the first generation of Futuristic writers reformed or disappeared. Then there are many young men carrying the banner of literature in Italy to-day who do not call themselves Futurist, and whose writings contain less of the grotesque, which has been made familiar to Italian readers by Marinetti's "Zang Tumb Tumb." They are men of the stamp of Antonio Beltramelli, Mario Mariani, Luigi Morselli, Gino Rocca, Salvator Gotta, Lorenzo Montano, Vincenzo Cardarelli, Raffale Calzini, Enrico Cavacchioli, Alfredo Grilli, and a score of others who not alone have ideas but who keenly sense the composite world-thought, who believe that the era of Big Business will reach its apogee when it weds Big Justice, and who know how to express their ideas with explosive rhythmic eloquence and with distinction of form.