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All’inizio della Grande Guerra, Giovanni Papini è uno dei rari intellettuali riformati per ragioni di salute. Lontano da una guerra che ha voluto e difeso con forza tra l’agosto del 1914 e il maggio del 1915, Papini rimane pressoché solo a Firenze e mantiene i contatti con i compagni andati al fronte, specie con Argengo Soffici, parlando delle attività letterarie e del dibattito politico che svolge dalle pagine della rivista La Voce e dei quotidiani Il Resto del Carlino (Bologna) e Il Tempo (Roma). La sua passione per questa guerra in cui si oppongono civilisation e Kultur si traduce in una poesia estranea alla Storia attuale. La poesia orfica di Papini, espressione delle bellezze naturali toscane, caratterizzata da una musicalità pura, rappresenta un “io” immerso nella solitudine della campagna, al cospetto della vastità dell’universo. Essa esprime l’essenza del genio mediterraneo dal quale la guerra attinge significato e giustificazione. At the start of the Great War, Giovanni Papini was one of the few intellectuals to be declared unfit for service for health reasons. Between August 1914 and May 1915, away from a war he had ardently wished for, Papini, virtually alone in Florence, kept in touch with his friends in the trenches –among which Ardengo Soffici with whom Papini discussed the literary activities and political debates he was an active part of in Florentine journal La Voce and in two daily papers: Bologna’s Il Resto del Carlino and Rome’s Il Tempo. His passionate acceptance of a war, which in his eyes was to bring into conflict Latin Civilisation and German Kultur, produces a poetry devoid of any ties with present-day History. Lending expression to the beauty of nature in Tuscany in words of a striking musical quality, Papini’s orphic poetry presents the immersion of the self into the solitude of the countryside, confronted with its own smallness as it faces the greatness of the universe. This poetry gives voice to the very essence of the Mediterranian genius, from which the war drew both meaning and justification.

Dans la série « Cultura dell’Anima » (1908-1938) Giovanni Papini a réuni un ensemble d’œuvres philosophiques et littéraires, soumises à des interprétations largement actualisées et présentées de façon à mettre en lumière leur contenu de « pensée » spécifique. Le Tomo dell’Io de Soffici présente d’évidents points en commun avec les volumes consacrés par Papini à Galilée et à Machiavel, en particulier dans la disposition des morceaux choisis par l’artiste toscan dans l’œuvre de Foscolo. Aux yeux de Soffici, les écrits foscoliens témoignent d’une sagesse philosophiques non superficielle, jaillie sans l’intermédiaire de grandes théories spéculatives. À l’instar de son ami Papini, Soffici exprimait ainsi son attitude sceptique à l’égard de la culture philosophique italienne contemporaine, en l’occurrence de la Philosophie de l’esprit de Benedetto Croce. Pour Soffici, Foscolo a manifesté un caractère héroïque et tragique en opposant à la conscience aiguë d’un « néant universel » l’acceptation stoïque de sa propre mission d’artiste. Philosophical and literary works which were submitted to broadly actualised interpretations and presented in a way that their content of specific “ideas” is brought forward. Soffici’s Tomo dell’Io shows some evident common points with the volumes Papini dedicated to Galileo and to Machiavelli, particularly in the disposition of the pages which the Tuscan artist chose in Foscolo’s works. According to Soffici the writings of Foscolo display a substantial philosophical wisdom which emerges without intervention of great speculative theories. In common with his friend Papini, Soffici thus expresses his sceptical attitude towards the Italian philosophical culture of his time, specifically Benedetto Croce’s Philosophy of Spirit. In Soffici’s opinion, Foscolo has manifested a heroic and tragic character by opposing the stoical acceptation of his own artistic mission to the sharp awareness of a universal ‘nothingness’.