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A philosopher, poet, drawer and painter, Carlo Michelstaedter (Gorizia 1887-1910) was a sensitive and disquieted young man. Soon after he had finished writing his degree thesis, “Persuasion and Rhetoric” - a key contribution to 20th century philosophy – he shot himself on October 17th, 1910. In opposition to the mood of the early 1900s, and to the ‘rhetoric’ of D’Annunzio and the Futurist poets like Marinetti, Michalestaedter promoted another poetic vision, one determined to fight the values of trade and progress of the middle class.  He wrote: “All progress of a civilization means a regression for man”.

The statue portraying CARLO MICHELSTAEDTER as he appears in a photograph taken in the Boboli gardens of Florence was placed at the start of Via Rastello in 2010, for the centenary of his death. The long street still bears traces of its medieval past, when it was teeming with shops and ateliers.