A Hymn to Satan

In 1906 the Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to Giosuè Carducci of Italy for extraordinary lifelong accomplishment in the field of poetry. He was a Satanist. By the time he won the Nobel, Carducci had firmly established himself as one of the world's most well-known and influential literary figures with a large body of distinguished work and a long career of artistic achievement, political activism and religious agitation. He had published several volumes of poetry attracting worldwide critical acclaim... Carducci's credentials as a Satanist include not only his worldly successes and overt opposition to Christianity but his writing of the highly controversial poem, Inno a Satana or "Hymn to Satan." In writing, publicly reciting and twice publishing this astounding poem, he stepped firmly beyond his paganism and even his anti-clericalism into the realm of modern Satanism by embracing the mythic character of Satan as an exemplary role model and heroic archetypal symbol. Indeed, it is this taking of Satan as an exemplar symbol that is the defining characteristic of the Modern Satanist. -R. Merciless, from his introduction.