Emilio Villa

Emilio Villa was born in Milan. He aspired to become a priest and attended the Archiepiscopal seminary of Milan before dropping out to concentrate on his studies on ancient languages. He later became interested in Noigandres poetry and the writings of Roger Caillois, and started to champion primitive writing. He co-founded the magazine Habitat and contributed to O Nivel., In 1950, Villa moved to São Paulo, where he befriended Brazilian "concrete poets" Haroldo de Campos and Augusto de Campos. He later returned to Italy and settled in Rome where he got involved with the local art scene, working with artists such as Alberto Burri, Sante Monachesi, Mario Schifano, Gino De Dominicis, Mark Rothko, Marcel Duchamp, Sebastiano Matta, Mario Schifano, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Patrizia Vicinelli, Giulio Turcato and Francesco Lo Savio. From the late 1950s through the early 1960s he collaborated with the art gallery Appia Antica in Rome. During that time, he also edited a contemporary art magazine associated with the gallery and published by Liana Sisti and Mario Ricci called Appia Antica: Atlas of New Art. Villa's scholarly etymological knowledge prompted him to try to make dead languages interact with living ones. He promoted his work in a semi-clandestine way, favouring independent publishers over more established names, as he felt experimentation and mainstream couldn't go together. Most of his writings were printed by small publishing houses or publications throughout Italy, and many are unavailable today. These include Il Frontespizio, Il Meridiano, Letteratura, Malebolge, Tam Tam, Baobab, Ana Etcetera, Documento-Sud, Linea-Sud, and Continuum. Villa also translated into Italian the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elis, Homer's Odyssey, and several books of the Hebrew Scriptures, including the first five books of Moses (Pentateuch), Job, Proverbs and Song of Songs. Villa died in Rieti in 2003.