Piero Martinetti (1872-1943) was a historian of Philosophy and one of the greatest Italian philosophers of the 20th century. He was a unique figure of an independent intellectual, extraneous-by choice-to both the Catholic tradition and the heavy political conflicts that marred his time. A promoter of a "gnostic" vision of Christianity, free from confessional implications, while participating in the general European climate of idealistic revival, he did not share the polemic against positive science of the Neo-Hegelians (for him, philosophy and science were not distinguished by their object, but by their method) and moved increasingly toward a "critical" idealism akin to Neo-Kantianism, but with a clearer emphasis on the metaphysical motive of transcendence.
As Cesare Goretti recalled, Piero Martinetti «He used to say of himself that he was a neo-Platonist who had migrated too soon into our century».
The Kingdom of the Spirit, one of the most beautiful philosophical reflections of all time, considered by Boris Yousef to be worthy of a Plotinus or a Porphyry, included in the 1926 collection Piero Martinetti. Saggi e discorsi (Piero Martinetti. Essays and Speeches), constitutes the text of the inaugural speech for the 1908-09 academic year read by the Piedmontese philosopher in the Great Hall of the Scientific-Literary Academy on November 9, 1908.
«The origin of every living being is due to the triumph of a form, of a unifying principle that forces a group of inferior energies to cooperate towards a goal of a higher order: and in this form, ancient wisdom already recognized something analogous to the spirit».