"Documenti e testimonianza relativi alle vicissitudini dei resti
mortali di Julius Evola" ("Documents and Testimonies about the
Vicissitudes of the Mortal Remains of Julius Evola") was published in
the Evolian review Arthos (no.7, September/December 1974).
Documents and Testimonies about the Vicissitudes of the Mortal
Remains of Julius Evola
(...) In the arrangements that he made on the 30th of January 1970,
Evola expressed the wish that his remains be carried "directly from
the house to the place of cremation". His reason for this, though
perhaps not intuited by all, was closely connected with the
traditional conception of the after-life. Unfortunately the person
who, although officially in charge of carrying out Evola's wishes,
failed to do her utmost to bring this about, will bear a terrible and
eternal moral responsibility. "To die is easy", Evola had once said
to Pierre Pascal (1). "But after? It is necessary that the body
leaves its home of life. I, I would like to die suddenly, and then to
be immediately carried, by night, to the pyre, to be burnt...still
fresh".
As early as the spring of that year there were some who, noting the
general worsening of Evola's precarious health, tried to ensure that,
as soon as his dreaded demise finally occurred, everything could be
done according to his wishes. Thus, the Zega company (in a letter to
Pierre Pascal) had offered its services, on a completely free basis,
to carry out the desired arrangements in the way and at the pace
wished by Evola.
However, the person in charge of the funeral arrangements ignored
this disinterested offer, of which Pierre Pascal had at once told
her, and chose to look elsewhere (2).
The result of this was that after the death, the coffin was taken to
Verano Cemetery, and after the disgraceful Masonic uproar of which we
have written elsewhere (3), was left unattended for a month.
The crematorium furnace of the Roman cemetery was out of order and
the possibility of its use in the future appeared uncertain. The
person responsible for the literal execution of Evola's will, instead
of coming up immediately with another solution (the situation, in any
case, should have been studied well in advance, in expectation of any
eventuality or contretemps) thus let precious days pass, with
unforgivable fickleness, during which the coffin lay at the back of
an obscure porch, along with ten other corpses or so which were
waiting to be dealt with.
Expressions of concern poured in on the executor by telephone and
letter ; she seemed to be enmeshed in thousands of difficulties of
every sort, especially bureaucratic, and the result did not change :
it became imperative to act urgently, if necessary by going outside
the formal channels - the exceptional personality of the deceased
demanded it. And yet nothing was done : a disconcerting rumour even
spread: around the 20th of June, we heard of a plan to have the
remains of Evola interred, since after a delay of twenty days you can
guess what happens to a corpse...
Pierre Pascal (...) wrote to the executor demanding to know the truth
about what was being said in Rome (..) but received no reply.
Around the 25th of June, Countess Baccelli proposed to transfer the
remains to Naples, where there was a crematorium with a functioning
furnace, but the executor was against it, not wishing any other firm
to replace her chosen Piacentini company.
Meanwhile, time was passing. From the end of June, we heard no more
of the incredible and disgusting scandal. On the 29th of June in
Rome, we found that one of the other persons chosen by Evola as
executors of his will did not know what was going on.
Another strange rumour spread : a plan to scatter the ashes of Evola
over Mount Rosa from a helicopter, which had apparently already been
booked, and this without giving a single thought to other, existant,
and completely different arrangements. After this, in the uncertainty
of the moment and in the face of the clear incompetence of the person
who should have taken care of the whole thing, we heard of the
desperate plan of some faithful. These latter, who were from an area
in South Italy, wanted to take away the coffin in a fake van, with
some complicity and an organised confusion between the funerary
companies (...) and carry out the rest of the arrangements straight
away. They proposed to put this scheme into operation if the
cremation had still not taken place within exactly a month from the
date of the funeral, that is, by the 13th of July. The plan was most
daring and risky, but showed a concept of genuine "faithfulness",
which can very seldom be found today and was known to the ancients :
not to allow the body of one's master, in the sense of 'guide'
and 'spiritual leader', to lie without sepulture and devoid of the
honours due to him : an idea manifests its value in the manner it
honours its dead.
In the meantime, some went on holiday, to rest ... among others, a
well-known journalist, who was considered by many to have been a
close friend of Evola, left in the first days of July, showing in
this way his cynical indifference towards the incredible shame which
was being heaped upon the great aristocrat.
On the 10th of July, finally - and in extremis - matters were
resolved. The cremation was to take place in Spoleto at night, using
the old - 19th century - crematorium furnace of the local cemetery.
The cremation ceremony lasted from 10.15 p.m. until the first hours
of the morning of the following day. Of the body of Evola, laid on a
oak-wood pyre, there remained only a few ashes, which were placed in
a clay urn of ancient style.
The present writer - back at his post after an extremely turbulent
journey into the Apuan Alps, in the heart of Umbria - was one of the
four persons who, that night, were present at the scene.
ABARIS
Notes
(1) Pierre Pascal, poet, essayist and French translator. A friend and
collaborator of Maurras, he served in the Vichy government, and was
sentenced to death for this after the war. He translated "La Dottrina
del Risveglio" (in two versions), "Maschera e volto dello
spiritualismo contemporaneo", "Rivolta contro il mondo moderno", and
numerous articles by Evola into French. They also corresponded.
(2) They turned instead to the Piacentini company. The expenses were
entirely covered by a legacy left by Evola.
(3) It appears that, despite Evola's rejection of a Catholic funeral,
one was still held, during which a number of Italian Freemasons made
something of a spectacle of themselves.
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