After having been refused an academic position at Palermo, he became a teacher of natural sciences at the Barnabite affiliated Collegio alla Quercia in Florence.

There he met or befriended Cezanne, Odilon Redon, Picasso, Diaghilev, Élie Faure, Paul Fort, Max Jacob, André Salmon, Diego Rivera, and Modigliani, who dedicated a painting to him in 1917.

[1] During World War I, he moved to London, renting his house in Sèvres to the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, a family friend.

After the war, he traveled as a journalist to cover the Versailles conference, working for Il Giornale d'Italia and, later, La Stampa; signing his articles Renato.

In 1934, he took a voyage around the world, with a stop at Fiji, then crossed the United States; a trip he chronicled in a series of articles for La Stampa.