Ricciotto Canudo was born in 1877 in Gioia del Colle, Italy. He studied oriental languages in Florence before moving to embrace avant-garde art, criticism, aesthetics, music and film. As a journalist, writer and philosopher, Canudo saw himself as neither fully Italian nor French but as a Mediterranean who sought cultural fulfillment abroad. He believed culture could unite peoples of differing ideologies and wanted to banish war and violence from the world.