However his painting, or rather his imagerie, despite these theoretical approaches to Futurism, remains even closer to the taste of the grotesque, to a certain moralism of Goya’s whims, to that of Daumier, or Alberto Martini’s. Stylistically, the pictorial works of this period are plastically sculptural, virile, and immediately refer to those of an Egger Lienz, a master of the Alpine area, rather than to the futurists’ ones.
Those were crucial years for the small town of Rovereto. Despite the distance from Vienna there was indeed a Central European climate, with influences from Austria as well as from the neighbouring Italy. They were also the years of the first irredentist uprisings, for the annexation of Trentino to Italy, and Cesare Battisti, the interventionist hero, already held his first speeches inflaming the crowds. The young avidly read the works by Nietzsche and D’Annunzio, and magazines such as “Ver Sacrum”, “La Voce” and “Poesia”, while, in Italy, the Futurist revolt was already exploding. It was an extremely stimulating atmosphere for a young intellectual, and in any case for an artist.