Filiberto Menna

Filiberto Menna (11 November 1926 – 6 February 1989) was an Italian art critic, art theorist, art historian, and academic.

Life and career
Born in Salerno, the son of the politician Alfonso, in 1950 Menna graduated in medicine at the University of Naples Federico II. While working as a doctor, in 1957 he made his literary debut with the critical essay Masaccio a Roma ('Masaccio in Rome'), published by La Fiera Letteraria. In 1959, he married the poet Bianca Pucciarelli, known under the pen name Tomaso Binga. In 1965, he became professor at the University of Salerno, and in 1969 he was named director of its institute of art history. In 1979, he became ordinary professor at the Sapienza University of Rome.

Major interest of Menna's studies were abstractism, artistic avant-gardes and new forms of art. Among his major works, ''Industrial design. Inchiesta… (1962), in which he theorized the potential integration of industrial production with art, Profezia di una società estetica ('Prophecy of an Aesthetic Society', 1968), a research about the roots of avant-gardes and modern art, La linea analitica dell’arte moderna ('The Analytical Strain in Modern Art', 1975), a history of art from a structuralist and analytical perspective which investigated the connections between art, mathematic and logic, Critica della critica  ('Critique of Criticism', 1980), and Progetto moderno dell’arte'' ('Modern Project of Art', 1988). He also authored monographies on Piet Mondrian, Enrico Prampolini, and William Hogarth.

Menna collaborated with numerous publications, including the newspapers Il Mattino and Paese Sera. He founded the art journal Figure. As an art curator, he collaborated with the Venice Biennale and the Rome Quadriennale. He also served as a Campania regional councilor, elected in 1975 as an independent with the Italian Communist Party. Menna died of leukemia on 6 February 1989, at the age of 62.