A great lover of speed, Marinetti had a minor car accident outside Milan in 1908 when he veered into a ditch to avoid two cyclists. He referred to the accident in the Futurist Manifesto: the Marinetti who was helped out of the ditch was a new man, determined to shake loose the pretense and decadence of the prevailing Liberty style. He outlined a new and strongly revolutionary programme to his friends, in which they should close off every bridge to the past, “destroy the museums, the libraries, every type of academy”, and sing of “the great crowds, shaken by work, by pleasure or by rioting”. Together, he wrote, “We will glorify war – the world’s only hygiene – militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman.”