In any case, if you can have some influence on Evola, it would really be a good thing. I consider him to be intelligent, although full of prejudices of all types. I think, in any case, that he is angling for a University post and this can also influence him in more ways.
~Letter from Rene Guenon to Guido de Giorgio, 15 August 1927

In our time when the study of so-called Traditionalism is reverting on the one hand to the academics, who busy themselves with cataloging various traditions and regarding traditionalism as one school of thought among many, and on the other hand, to a vague type of spirituality based on sentimentalism and syncretism, two tendencies Traditionalism opposed, it is easy to forget the novelty and excitement of the first wave of thinkers. Like explorers of a new territory, this was left to those of strong personality. We need more such “wild or savage initiates” for whom Tradition is not an abstract concept but a way of life that takes hold of one’s entire being.

In the face of all the new translations into European languages of Oriental texts in the 19th century and the growing sense of spiritual ennui in Europe, Rene Guenon sought for the hidden unity. He began to recognize a unitary metaphysical doctrine behind the dogmas, rites and symbols of the various traditions. This led him to the discovery of the same thing in the West, so he went in search of a living line of tradition in the West. He first was involved with the masonic occult current in Paris of the early 19th century, which he came to reject over certain doctrines. Next he became involved with Catholicism, which he abandoned when he was rebuffed by Jacques Maritain. Finally, when his wife died, Guenon emigrated to Egypt where he lived as a Sufi. This must be understood as purely a personal decision of Guenon and not an endorsement of specific doctrines, which in any case are found in all authentic traditions.

Guenon mentions two reasons, neither of which is necessarily convincing:

1. There can be no new revelations after Mohammed
2. There is no continuous tradition in the West

While no new metaphysical doctrines are possible, the appearance of a new exterior form based on an earlier one is not inconceivable, and item (2) is an historical judgment, not a metaphysical conclusion.

In Italy, perhaps because there was more of a sense of a still living Tradition or because of the more communal political philosophy, there arose three thinkers who rejected the personal element and worked to bring to light the Roman Tradition. Arturo Reghini was a Pythagorean who demonstrated a still living chain from Pythagoras that included Dante, Tomaso Campanella, inter alios.

Julius Evola proposed a revival of the ideals of Roman paganism and the ancient mysteries (though not a return of specific forms of worship). He was staunchly anti-Christian, although his acceptance of the Middle Ages as authentically traditional and his endorsement of later Christian-inspired movements always kept him in an ambiguous and compromised position.

The third figure, Guido de Giorgio, inspired by Guenon and Evola, recognized a unitary Roman Tradition which incorporated both the Western pagan Tradition as well as Christianism, which de Giorgio regarded as an Eastern religion. De Giorgio was reclusive and seems to have never promoted his books, so his work is little known. Then there is question of prejudices of all types: there are those who do not want Christianism to be defended at all, and the others would prefer not to have it defended in quite that way. On the other extreme, we have neopagans who are not traditional and have often been the target of criticism from Evola. Nevertheless, to accept both the ancient world and the Middle Ages as traditional, or both Pythagoras and Dante, would seem to require something along the lines of de Giorgio’s project.

Here are some excerpts from the foreward to La Tradizione romana.

This essay is a simple introduction to the doctrine of the Roman Tradition and not a complete or partial treatment of it. It would be puerile to do so in in a few dozen pages when many volumes would be necessary to exhaust this extremely complex argument, because it concerns two traditional forms that historically succeeded each other, interpenetrating each other in the course of centuries, never completely for various reasons that would require research into the very nature of the Western peoples. From that the urgency of this synthesis that is already virtually contained in the succession of the two traditional forms, in events that have determined the vanishing of the first and the affirmation of the second, in the meaning of the symbols belonging to the one or the other, in the substantial unity of the doctrine thanks to the unification of it that Roma has accomplished in the absolute sacred-metaphysical seat and in its function as the permanent centre of the West, be it only through aspects that are visibly profane yet hide a much deeper need.

The point of view of this essay is absolute, that is, metaphysical, sacred, traditional: these three terms are identical for us because they converge in the determination of the same domain, that of transcendental truth that constitutes the supreme goal of man, that we consider traditionally of divine origin and divine destination although they want and know how to gain what they have voluntarily lost, its true power, its highest dignity, of being the creature favoured by the Lord returning to the next Holy Tradition. This orientation, which is absolute, is therefore not even to be placed in discussion, but to be accepted of refused according to what is or is not in the Tradition, not only the Roman Tradition, but whatever other truly orthodox tradition worthy of that name.

We propose, therefore, a new philosophy, a new art, a new life, that would have scant interest in this hothouse of noisily empty and artificial novelties that is modern Europe, so we absolutely avoid what commonly calls itself “original”, “personal” and that however has an imprint too characteristic and limited to serve as a true renewal. We propose what is older in the world, the return to the traditional spirit and, since this essay is oriented toward the West, more specifically the return to the Roman Tradition. This return signifies for us the consciousness of the divine order, the restoration of traditional principles, the reorganization of a traditional society in line with the Regnum and the Imperium, spiritual authority and temporal power harmonically developed in the same traditional ambit.

The return to the Roman Tradition implies the integral return to the spirit of the truth according to the name, symbol and reality of Rome that must be considered as the sacred, indefectible, unpolluted apex, beyond any egoism or ambition of men or peoples, in the true light of the divine plane to which it belongs. This and nothing else is the ultimate goal of the Roman Tradition, the exaltation of the power of Rome in the ambit of the Tradition that alone can give truth, justice and greatness to the West.

The restoration that we propose, by taking up again the thought, aspiration and ideal of Dante, is a return to the spirit of Rome, not the repetition pure and simple of the past that would in any case by unrealizable since nothing repeats itself in the contingencies of the world, but the integral adherence to those eternal principles of truth that are contained in the Holy Books and expressed by ancient symbols.