Francesco Leonetti

Francesco Leonetti (27 January 1924 – 17 December 2017) was an Italian poet, novelist, art critic, teacher and political activist. Leonetti was born in Cosenza in Calabria. In 1955 he moved to Bologna to study philosophy. There he met Pier Paolo Pasolini and Roberto Roversi, and together they co-founded the magazine Officina. In the 1960s he co-founded with Elio Vittorini and Italo Calvino the literary magazine Il Menabò. In 1963 he joined the Neoavanguardia avant-garde Italian literary movement.

Leonetti collaborated with Pasolini again in 1964, playing the part of Herod Antipas in The Gospel According to St. Matthew. He also provided the voice of the sparrow in The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966) and played the part of the servant Laio in the 1967 film Oedipus Rex.In the 1970s he co-edited with Nanni Balestrini the magazine Alfabeta. In 1974 he authored a monograph on Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro. From 1975 to 1995 he taught Aesthetics at the Brera Academy in Milan.