26. Filippo Tomaso Marinetti. Zang tumb tuuum: Adrianopoli ottobre 1912: parole in libertà.
Milano: Edizioni Futuriste de "Poesia," 1914. First edition.
Rare Book Collection.

Zang tumb tuuum is Filippo Tomaso Marinetti's manifesto for the Futurist movement, written at the onset of the First World War. Its titular words, which appear repeatedly throughout the text, are not merely Dadaist nonsense; rather, they evoke the sounds of bullets and bombs whistling through the air and exploding on impact. The manifesto is punctuated by unique typographical conceits, such as this page's evocation of a "Turkish balloon" being punctured by artillery, suggested by both the ricocheting visual lines and the hissing and vibrating sounds spelled out by the letters. Marinetti's reappropriation of typesetting is similar to the way Cubist painters of the same era incorporate fragments of newspapers, advertisements, and other everyday ephemera in their canvases.