Pio Filippani Ronconi

Pio Alessandro Carlo Fulvio Filippani Ronconi (10 March 1920 – 11 February 2010) was an Italian orientalist. He was born in Madrid, Spain, and died in Rome.

He was born out of a very ancient Black Aristocratic family (his father being Count Fulvio Filippani Ronconi and his mother Anita Tamagno), tracing back to the Roman patriciate. He grew up in Spain up to the Civil War, when his mother was shot by Republicans and he came back in Italy with his family. He had already learned Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Arabic, Greek and Latin, and now he studied at the university several oriental languages such as Turkish, Hebrew, Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Persian, and others. For this reason, he worked for the Italian radio company EIAR as reader of news in foreign languages.

At the same time, his spiritual interests brought him to study and practice the tantras, and to know Julius Evola, Arturo Reghini and other members of the Ur Group. He studied thoroughly tantrism and gnosticism, in different cultural contexts, as well as the faiths and rituals of ancient Italy, from the Iguvine Tablets to Ancient Roman religion.

When Italy entered World War II (10 June 1940), he enlisted as a volunteer, fighting in Libya. He was wounded twice and he was decorated for his valour. After the fall of Benito Mussolini and the constitution of Italian Social Republic, he enlisted as a volunteer private, then confirmed as an Obersturmführer (literally "Senior Stormleader", roughly equivalent to Senior Lieutenant), in the Italian SS-Legion, then reorganized as the 29th Division of the Waffen-SS “Italia”. He fought defending the Axis front at Nettuno, receiving the Second-Class Iron Cross. He was probably the last surviving member of the Bataillon "Degli Oddi", having taken part in that battle.

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