Typography
"I initiate a typographical revolution aimed at the bestial, nauseating idea of the book of passéist and D'Annunzian verse, on Seventeenth Century handmade paper bordered with helmets, Minervas, Apollos, elaborate red initials, vegetables, mythological missal ribbons, epigraphs, and roman numerals. The book must be the Futurist expression of our Futurist thought. My revolution is aimed at the so-called typographical harmony of the page, which is contrary to the flux and reflux, the leaps and bursts of style that run through the page. On the same page, therefore, we will use three or four colours of ink, or even twenty different typefaces if necessary. With this typographical revolution and this multicoloured variety in the letters I mean to redouble the expressive force of words."
Typography
The printed word was extremely important to Futurism; the movement's beginnings were based in poetry and literature produced in magazines, pamphlets and books. Also, the reliance on the large number of widely circulated manifestos for the dissemination of the polemic doctrines and artistic theories of Futurism almost made it the product of an advertising machine. Marinetti's own book, Zang Tumb Tumb (1914) typifies the style and feeling of words-in-freedom and is a milestone in typographic design. Words-in-freedom are used onomatopoeically to graphically illustrate the explosions of weapons and grenades and the noise of battle. With its dynamic formats and striking use of colour and typography, Marinetti's words-in-freedom concept was seized upon by the Futurists resulting in many books in a similar style.
Poetry
The other 'modern' way the Futurists publicized themselves and their movement was the serata. These Futurist soirées, invariably organized and led by Marinetti, were the precursor of the 'Synthetic Theatre'. Performances usually included music or a performance of Russolo's intonorumori or noise machines, improvised speeches, presentations of paintings, literary and poetic readings and short dramatic plays called sintesi or syntheses.
In 1917 Marinetti met Benedetta Cappa, twenty one years his junior and a student of Giacomo Balla. By 1919 - the year he wrote his manifesto Against Marriage - they were living together and they married in 1923. He died Dec. 2, 1944 in Bellagio, Italy.