which has given him a novel physiognomy of his own, at once Tuscan and cosmopolitan.
As a writer he began to express himself in French in the Vagabondages lyriques which came out between 1904 and 1906 in the Plume and in the Europe artiste. Toward the end of his long stay in France, he sent to the Leonardo (under the name of Stefan Cloud) two or three essays in art criticism, in which, under the rust of lingering ideologies, one could already perceive the vigorous apostle of modern art who was so soon to reveal himself. In a brief polemic entitled Rentrée there appeared already the bright color and the impressionistic freshness which were later to develop in full consciousness in the most successful pages of the Harlequin and the Logbook.
In his first book, a tiny volume of a few score pages, printed (and badly printed) in 1909, the influence of Foscolo, Leopardi, and Carlyle is too apparent. The Unknown Tuscan is indeed dedicated to Didimus Clericus, Filippo Ottonieri, and Dr. Teufelsdröckh. The contents of this book are but the floating fragments of a shipwreck, the remnants of a great pessimistic work which was to have been called Tragedy.
When the publication of the Voce began, Soffici set out with a will to acquaint Italy with foreign art, and with French art in particular. His essays on Cézanne, Dégas, Gauguin, Renoir,
