Count Leonardo CLERICI

Count Leonardo A.C.F. CLERICI, is an Italian philosopher and publisher. He was born in Rome in 1955, son of Countess Ala Marinetti and Count Ardeno Clerici (Counts of Castiglione Olona, Varese), of an ancient Lombardian Milanese family (Counts of Lomathio 1358, & Marquis de’Longhi) and the patriot, banker and philanthropist Cesare Goldmann (Trieste 1858-Rome 1937). In 1972, following the example of his family and in particular of his uncle Alberto Cappa (1903-1943) who died as a volunteer during the battle of Don in USSR, he became a liberal thinker who participed in the refoundation of the Italian Liberal Party as well as the Radical Party (Pannella) until 1974, year of the death of the Italian writer Pasolini. He collaborates as a writer with Centro Luigi Einaudi of Torino and Enzo Marzo’s review Biblioteca della Libertà.

In 1976 he founded the poetry review, ANCORA, in Rome, which studied the experimental renovation of languages in arts. He completely reorganized the archives of his family for the collection of Yale University (USA): F.T. Marinetti (1876-1944 cf. FUTURISM). He participates in exihibitions and conferences on modern art as well as the theory of a new liberal transcendental thought. He collaborates on reviews and organizes international colloquia. In 1979, he was awarded a masters degree in Political Science (Prof. Augusto del Noce Philosophy of Politics): Il problema del paradiso per i Cantos di Ezra Pound. In 1991 he was awarded a special masters degree in Philosophy (Paris X) with a thesis on the Averroist Cartesian Calvinist philosopher : The Averroist Dictionary of Pierre Bayle. He was visiting professor in philosophy and hermeneutics (USA, EU, Tunisia, Iran, Morocco, Turkey, South Africa, China, Russia). He was visiting professor at the Soros Central European University (1991)..

In 1983 he founded a publishing house for reprinting and the Foundation ISTITUTO DI SKRIPTURA in Rome, www.skriptura.be. In 1991 he transferred the Foundation to Paris. He developed the study and reprint with annotations of European Renaissance wisdom, and on the avantgardes (symbolism, futurism, surrealism). He organized a global exihibition in Museo del Genio Rome, on the relation between technology and poetics/design (EMM Exchange Metamorfic Museum): La Musa Metallica di Marinetti, as well as in the Cartier Fondation (Paris 1991) CHEMIN DE FER, installation of iron and paper (collage). In 1994 he curated the exihibition L’ORACLE DE L’AVANTGARDE, creating a book with magnetic binding and catalogue. In 1999 he published (Fayard) Sitôt lus, Henri Michaux, correspondance with Franz Hellens. In 2001 he published (Felin) Narcisse au monument, correspondance Valery-Fontainas.

Sed id sodales sapien. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Nulla facilisi.

In 1995 he presented, at the State Archives of Rome, a monumental work on the economist & jurist Alberto Asquini : TRICESIMO, about the free trade economic policy in Italy (1900-1945) with more than 1,500 documents reprinted in the book. Interviews in Europe and in other countries report his new interpretation of the Futurist movement of F.T.Marinetti, connecting the italian Platonic Renaissance and a neoplatonist avantgarde concept, including the mystical islamic vison (Ibn Sina, Ibn Roshd, Ghazali, Al Kindi). In 1984 he received an award from the Presidency of the Council for Culture in Italy. In 1998 he established Istituto di Skriptura, as a non profit AISBL, in the Kingdom of Belgium. In 2005 he published the first experimental islamic hellenist ( roum) language FILOSTRATO with the italian painter and friend Paolo Cotani. He published (1995) two volumes of the international proceedings of UNESCO on Iranian and Islamic poetry, inventing a new analogical translation : Traduire Hafiz, Les Ages de Saadi. In 1998 he organized an international colloquium at the University of Viterbo: RETORICA FT MARINETTI.

His collection of graphic works ( futurism,surrealism, suprematism) and an important library on the Italian, hellenic, orientalist and biblical renaissance ( 10.000 volumes) is organized in 700 m2 of his palace (Palais Clerici , Brussels) with a gallery (Arts & Garden ) with the aim of being the unique neoplatonist gnostic contemporary centre for islamic philosophy, art and holy scriptures. In 2008 he published his complete works in three volumes , in collaboration with the centre of Persian manuscripts of Prof Askavari in Qumm: Liberté Islamique, essai de theologie politique & alliance liberale euroislamique; STYX , avantgarde gnostique & islamique; La Comete Bayle, le dictionaire averroiste. These three books contain all his works during more than 30 years aiming to renovate the contemporary mediterranean and italic languages in relation to the islamic metaphysics and coranic oracular wisdom.

Arts & Garden Gallery

The Arts & Garden Gallery, a branch of the Foundation Istituto di Skriptura, has presented artists such as the Japanese sculptor Tetsuo Harada, calligraphers Zhu Cheng, Mehmet Zeki Kusoglu, Shiva Nazem Zade, a Water Symposium and a celebration of the Chester Beatty Library during the Irish Presidency of the EU in 2013. Since 1984, Count Clerici has been a member of the Association International de Bibliophiles, Paris, and a member of SIHSPAI, the international society in Cambridge and Paris dedicated to the academic study of Arabic & Islamic contemporary philosophy.