His fame rests on his only published book of poetry, the Canti Orfici ("Orphic Songs"), as well as his wild and erratic personality, including his ill-fated love affair with Sibilla Aleramo.

His father Giovanni, who was always affectionate and understanding with Dino, was an elementary school principal, and forthright member of the community, but had a weak and neurotic character.

When he returned to Marradi his nervous condition worsened and he suffered frequent mood swings - due to the difficult relationship with his family (especially his mother) and the town.

The first reaction of his family, his town, and the public authorities was to consider Campana's strange behavior and travels to foreign countries as an obvious signs of madness.

After a short intermission at San Salvi in Florence, he left for Belgium, but was arrested again in Brussels, and was interned in a ‘maison de santé’ in Tournai at the start of 1910.

In 1913 Campana went to Florence, to meet with Lacerba magazine associates Giovanni Papini and poet/painter Ardengo Soffici (his distant relative), to deliver his manuscript for publication, entitled "The longest day".

In the spring of 1914, with the help of a local printer of religious tracts, Campana was finally able to self-publish the collection 'Orphic Songs' at his own expense, the title a reference to the mythic figure of Orpheus, the first of poet-musicians.

44 copies were sold on subscription and Campana attempted, with marginal success, to sell the remainder of his portion of the run (the printer had taken half the books as partial printing payment) himself at cafes in Florence.

Paralleling the actual physical journey is a spiritual and mystical voyage undertaken by Campana in search of The Longest Day of Genoa (il più lungo giorno di Genova)- his concept of an eternal moment (l'eterno presente) outside of normal space-time in which everything and everywhere exists simultaneously.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Campana the pacifist and neutralist, was exempt from military service, ostensibly because of physical health problems, but in reality he was known to be seriously mentally ill.

In the same year Campana met Sibilla Aleramo, the author of the novel Una donna, and began an intense and tumultuous relationship with her, that she ended at the start of 1917 after a brief encounter at Christmas 1916 in Marradi.

The letter was written while Sibilla was on holiday at the Villa La Topaia in Borgo San Lorenzo and Campana was in a critical condition at Firenzuola, recovering from a partial paralysis on his right side.

In 1942, on the behest of Piero Bargellini, the remains of the poet were given a more dignified burial and the body was transferred to the chapel below the bell tower of the Church of San Salvatore.

In 1946, following a ceremony attended by numerous Italian intellectuals, including Eugenio Montale, Alfonso Gatto, Carlo Bo, Ottone Rosai, Pratolini and others, the bones of the poet were placed inside the church of San Salvatore Badia a Settimo, where they remain today.

The title of Campana's only published work alludes to the Orphic Hymns, a literary genre developed in ancient Greece between the second and third century AD and characterized by a non-classical theogony.

One of the major themes of Campana, which is present at the beginning of the "Orphic Songs" in the early prose parts - "The Night", "Journey and Return" - is the obscurity between dream and wakefulness.

In the fifteen years following his death at the end of World War II, and before, during the period of expressionism and futurism, the interpretation of Campana's poetry focused on the apparently uncontrolled depth of the word, hidden in a psychological state of hallucination and ruin.