EVOLA, Giulio (Julius) Cesare Andrea. Rome 19.5.1889 — Rome 11.6.1974. Italian Lawyer, Poet, Painter, Author, and Rightist Politician and Philosopher interested in Asian Religions. Born in an aristocratic Sicilian family. Studied engineering and served in WW I as artillery officer. After war futurist and dadaist poet and painter, from 1920 concentrated on esoteric and Oriental doctrines. He was close to Fascism, but never joined the party, which he found too populist. With his racist idea won the favour of Mussolini. He was aristocrat and ardent antisemitist, anticatholic and antibolshevist. In 1943 fled before the Allies to Vienna, where he worked for the Ahnenerbe, in 1945 paralyzed by a shell fragment from the waist down for the rest of his life. Lived in Rome as a free author and lay scholar, eagerly engaged in politics as an extreme rightist. His philosophy can be dismissed here. Unmarried.

Publications: Several collections of poetry since c. 1915; much on Near Eastern and ancient religions, on philosophy, etc.

L’uomo come potenza. I Tantra nella loro metafisica e nei loro metodi di autorealizzazione magica. 313 p. Rome 1926.

Sintesi della dottrina della razza. 308 p. Milano 1941; German transl. 1943.

La dottrina del risveglio, saggio sull’ ascesi buddhista. 328 p. Bari 1943; English transl. L. 1951.

Lo yoga della potenza (saggio sui tantra). 2nd rev. ed. 430 p. Milano 1949, French transl. Le Yoga tantrique, sa métaphysique, ses pratiques. 322 p. Documents spirituels 4. P. 1971.

Sources: D.B.I.; *F. Ferraresi, “J.E.: Tradition, Reaction, and the Radical Right”, Archives Eur. de Sociologie 28, 1987, 107-151; long and detailed article in Wikipedia, with photo and further references (see also the Italian version for further photos and original titles of his works). During the last 30 years Evola has become rather famous among some far-right thinkers and this has especially in Italy led to a number of tendentious writings, which are not listed here.