Winckelmann, Goethe And The Ideal Of Antiquity
Supported by a Saxon court grant, Johann Joachim Winckelmann arrived in Rome in 1755 and became president of the Vatican collection of ancient art in 1763. With works such as Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture (1755) and History of the Art of Antiquity (1764), he is regarded as the father of art history and archaeology. He was the first to describe ancient artworks in detail and place them in broader historical contexts. By shifting attention from Roman to Greek art, which he praised as embodying “noble simplicity and calm grandeur,” he created the canon that shaped German Classicism.

In Monumenti antichi inediti (1767), Winckelmann traced the Greek roots of Roman art through 216 engravings of newly discovered antiquities, many drawn from the collections of Cardinal Alessandro Albani, whose librarian he became in 1759. Goethe encountered antiquity in Rome through Winckelmann’s lens; he already knew his writings via his drawing teacher Adam Friedrich Oeser. In Rome he then met the art historian Karl Philipp Moritz, whose influence led him to refine Winckelmann’s ideals, stressing artistic individuality and re-defining the relationship between art and nature. For Goethe, antiquity became not just a model to imitate, but a living measure for his own artistic and scientific pursuits.

Illustrating Goethe’s Faust
Friedrich August Moritz Retzsch was among the first artists to treat Goethe’s Faust visually. By 1808 he had already drawn scenes he showed Goethe in 1810; in 1816 his cycle of 26 etched illustrations appeared, praised by Goethe for their inventive composition and expressive figures. The drawing shown here repeats the second etching, with Faust and Wagner on their Easter walk and Mephistopheles lurking to the right as a poodle, probably offered as an alternative to the printed sheet.

Wilhelm von Lindenschmit the Younger depicts Faust in Auerbach’s Cellar, where Mephistopheles makes wine flow from the table for boisterous drinkers; Faust, brooding and unimpressed, turns away. The drawing, dated to around 1850, relates to a now-lost painting. Around 1960, Josef Hegenbarth illustrated the moment just before the pact is signed: Faust still hesitates, his face turned back in doubt, while Mephisto, with fleshy nose and sardonic grin, lays a hand on his shoulder. A black line seems to run from the demon’s body into Faust’s arm, suggesting that the scholar’s hand is already guided by Mephistopheles’ will.

Faust: From Legend to Goethe’s Life’s Work
Goethe began working on the figure of Doctor Faust between 1772 and 1773, drafting an early version known as the Urfaust in Frankfurt am Main. From this he developed Faust. A Fragment, completed in 1788 and published in Leipzig in 1790. An expanded version appeared in 1808 as Faust. A Tragedy. Late in life, between 1825 and 1831, he returned to the material again, composing Faust. The Second Part of the Tragedy, published posthumously in 1832.

The Faust legend, popularised by the chapbook The History of Doctor Johann Fausten (1587), had long been familiar to Goethe, who first encountered it as a puppet play in 1771/72. In Goethe’s drama, the world-weary scholar Faust promises Mephistopheles his soul if the devil can free him from dissatisfaction and grant him constant change. Rejuvenated, Faust seduces Gretchen, who bears his child; through his actions her brother and mother die. While Faust and Mephisto revel at the Witches’ Sabbath, Gretchen kills her child, repents, and awaits execution, refusing to flee and insisting on atoning for her guilt.

In Part One, Gretchen’s tragedy stands at the centre. In Part Two, the Faust story expands into a vast parable of humanity, history and striving. Goethe called the completion of Faust his “main business.” When he finally finished it, his friend and secretary Eckermann recorded the poet’s words: “My further life I can now regard as a pure gift, and it is basically irrelevant whether and what else I do.”

Goethe’s Faust: From Legend to Life’s Work
Goethe began working on the figure of Doctor Faust in the early 1770s in Frankfurt, composing an initial version known as the “Urfaust.” From this he developed Faust. A Fragment, completed in 1788 and published in 1790. An expanded Faust. A Tragedy appeared in 1808. Between 1825 and 1831 he returned once more to the material, completing Faust. The Second Part of the Tragedy, published posthumously in 1832.

The Faust legend, popular since the 1587 chapbook The History of Dr. Johann Fausten, had long circulated in puppet shows and adaptations; Goethe himself first encountered it at a puppet theatre around 1771–72. In Part I, the world-weary scholar Faust pledges his soul to Mephistopheles if the devil can free him from his dissatisfaction and provide constant renewal. Rejuvenated, Faust seduces Gretchen, whose mother and brother die through his actions; abandoned and desperate, she kills their child. Imprisoned and awaiting execution, she refuses to flee, convinced she must atone for her crime.

While the Gretchen tragedy occupies the first part, the second broadens Faust’s story into an allegory of humanity’s striving. Goethe saw the completion of Faust as his “main business.” When he finally finished it, he told his friend Eckermann that the rest of his life felt like a pure gift—whatever else he might still achieve no longer mattered as much as this work.

Johann Georg Schütz And The Temple Of Saturn
Johann Georg Schütz (1755–1813) from Frankfurt was one of Goethe’s housemates in the shared artists’ apartment at Via del Corso 18. Having arrived in Rome in 1784, he moved within the circle of German artists and was a friend of Angelika Kauffmann. Schütz often acted as Goethe’s guide on walks through the city and was, as the poet noted, “often useful.” In 1788 he produced the preparatory drawings for Goethe’s Roman Carnival.

The drawing shown here depicts the Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum. In Goethe’s time, systematic excavations had not yet begun; many monuments lay half-buried and overgrown, and the Forum, where cattle grazed, was known as the Campo Vaccino. The ancient temple, consecrated in 497 BCE, had even been adapted as a low horse stable, clearly visible in the sheet. In the background stands the Arch of Septimius Severus, still deeply sunk into the ground. Two men play the mandolin on a bench while a third, accompanied by a donkey and a dog, dances past. Schütz thus combines careful documentation of the ruin’s condition with a vivid glimpse of everyday Roman life, much as Goethe and he would have experienced it on their rambles through ancient Rome.

The Roman Campagna And Franz Albert Venus
In the 18th and early 19th centuries the rural belt around Rome, the Campagna Romana or Agro Romano, appeared as a marshy plain dotted with stagnant pools where malaria plagued shepherds and farmers during the summer. Travellers usually crossed it quickly along the Via Appia, on their way to the Alban Hills and ultimately to Brindisi; it was rarely a destination in itself, and early picturesque depictions are scarce. Only in the 19th century did landscape painters begin to treat the Campagna’s barrenness as an artistic challenge. Italian, German, Scandinavian and English artists turned to its low hills, ruins, cattle herds and mounted butteri, making the region a favourite motif.

Among them was Franz Albert Venus, who stayed in Rome in 1866/67 and again in 1869. He described the Campagna as “a silent sea of finely curved, solidified waves of hills.” His watercolour here shows an unidentified ruin northeast of Rome, in the area of today’s Monte Sacro district. On the horizon stands Monte Gennaro; to the left lies the village of Palombara Sabina. Typical reed huts of the Campagna’s inhabitants cluster beside the ancient structure. Yet despite these precise references, the work is above all an atmospheric study. Venus is less concerned with topography than with the play of light and colour over the “waves of hills,” whose horizontal rhythms are echoed by mountains and clouds, dissolving solid form into luminous bands.

Hackert’s Waterfall at Isola del Liri: A Painting’s Journey
The painting shown here depicts the Cascata del Valcatoio at Isola del Liri, south of Frosinone and known in the 18th century as Isola di Sora. In the town centre the river Liri divides into two arms, forming two waterfalls: the cascade represented here and, behind it, the Cascata Grande. On the hill stands the Boncompagni Castle (owned by the Viscogliosi family since 1924), with the chapel of Santa Maria delle Grazie to the right; further right rise the twin towers of San Lorenzo Martire above the roofs.

Hackert “discovered” this site for art during an excursion in 1773 and was among the first to depict it. The painting, executed in 1794, is a meticulous landscape portrait that records buildings, water and terrain without idealisation, reflecting an Enlightenment interest in documentary precision that Goethe particularly admired.

Around 1900 the work belonged to Franz Rappolt (1870–1945), a wealthy Jewish textile merchant in Hamburg. In 1938 his firm was “Aryanised,” and he was forced to sell his company and later his villa. Rappolt was murdered in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943. Before this, he had been compelled to sell Hackert’s painting at a low price to the dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt for the planned “Hitler Museum” in Linz. Seized by American forces in 1945, the work entered the collection of the Federal Foreign Office in Bonn. In 2017 it was restituted to Rappolt’s heirs, who placed it on permanent loan to the Casa di Goethe.

Hackert himself had lived near the Spanish Steps in Rome from 1768 to 1786 and was well acquainted with Tischbein. His painting thus returns, in a sense, to the circle of artists who once animated Goethe’s Roman world.

Winckelmann and the Rediscovery of Antiquity
Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) arrived in Rome in 1755 with the support of the Saxon court and became president of the Vatican’s collection of ancient art in 1763. With works such as Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture (1755) and History of the Art of Antiquity (1764), he is regarded as the founder of art history and archaeology. He was the first to describe ancient artworks systematically and to place them within a larger historical development, shifting attention from Rome to Greece and defining Greek art by its “noble simplicity and quiet grandeur.”

His Monumenti antichi inediti (1767) presents 216 engravings of ancient works newly discovered in the 18th century. From 1759 Winckelmann served as librarian to Cardinal Alessandro Albani, whose collections provided much of his material. For this precursor of German Classicism, ancient art became the ultimate model.

Goethe sought out antiquity in Rome partly to test his own artistic ideas against Winckelmann’s criteria. He already knew Winckelmann’s writings through his drawing teacher Adam Friedrich Oeser. Under the influence of the art historian Karl Philipp Moritz, whom he met in Rome, Goethe later refined this legacy by stressing artistic individuality and redefining the relationship between art and nature, moving beyond pure imitation of classical ideals.

“All Is Leaf”: Goethe’s Primordial Plant
Goethe’s fascination with plants accompanied him throughout his life. One aim of his Italian journey was to investigate what he called the “primordial plant” (Urpflanze), originally conceived as a formal principle from which all plant forms might derive. On 27 September 1786, in the Botanical Garden of Padua, the idea gained shape: confronted with unfamiliar species, he wondered whether “all plant forms could perhaps develop from one.”

After visiting the Botanical Garden in Palermo in April 1787, Goethe felt that such an original plant must exist: “It is impossible that it doesn’t exist! How else would I recognize that this or that structure is a plant, if they were not all formed according to a single model?” In his Italian diary he sketched the hypothesis: “Everything is leaf, and through this simplicity the greatest variety is possible.”

He later published his botanical research in 1790 in The Metamorphosis of Plants. There the term Urpflanze disappears, replaced by an interest in the “laws of plant formation” and the plant as a dynamic, evolving being. Goethe’s drawings—of plants as well as minerals—reflect this analytical gaze. For him, artistic creation began with the trained eye, which observes natural forms, and the hand, which translates them into line. This close link between seeing and drawing, first refined in Italy, continues to inspire artists and viewers today.


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Goethe’s Italian Journey And Roman Rebirth
In early September 1786, at the age of thirty-seven, Johann Wolfgang Goethe secretly set off on the longest and most decisive journey of his life. Leaving Weimar without warning friends or colleagues, he travelled incognito as the merchant “Giovanni Filippo Moeller,” fleeing official duties, social obligations, and his painful, unfulfilled love for the married Charlotte von Stein. Supported financially by Duke Carl August, he could travel without money worries, carrying the standard German guidebook “Volkmann” and manuscripts he had promised to finish for his publisher Göschen.

His route led over the Brenner Pass and Lake Garda via Verona, Vicenza and Venice, then through Ferrara, Bologna, Florence, Perugia and Assisi to Rome, the true goal of his longing since childhood, nourished by his father’s Italian souvenirs and views of Roman monuments. After 56 days, he entered the city on 29 October 1786 through the Porta del Popolo and soon wrote with relief: “Yes, I have finally arrived in this capital of the world!” In Rome he hoped for a personal “rebirth” through the encounter with antiquity in life and art. The travel diary, written above all for Charlotte, breaks off on his arrival and is replaced by letters announcing that Giovanni Filippo Moeller’s Roman adventure has begun.

Johann Georg Schütz and the Forum Romanum
Johann Georg Schütz (1755–1813), a painter from Frankfurt, was one of Goethe’s housemates at Via del Corso 18. Having arrived in Rome in 1784, he moved in German artistic circles and befriended Angelika Kauffmann. Schütz often accompanied Goethe on walks through the city and, as the poet noted, was “often useful” as a guide. In 1788 he produced preparatory drawings for Goethe’s Roman Carnival. After returning to Frankfurt in 1790, he worked there as a landscape and history painter until his death.

The drawing shown here depicts the Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum at a time when systematic excavations had not yet begun. Many monuments lay half-buried and overgrown; the forum served as pastureland known as the Campo Vaccino (“Cow Field”). The Temple of Saturn, consecrated in 497 BC, had even been adapted into a low stable, clearly visible in the image. In the background stands the Arch of Septimius Severus, still sunk deep in the ground. Everyday life unfolds in the foreground: two men sit on a bench playing the mandolin while a third, leading a donkey and dog, breaks into a dance step. Schütz records the ancient ruins with great accuracy while also conveying the lived, rural character of the forum that Goethe and he would have experienced on their wanderings.

Goethe later recalled the view from the Senators’ Palace in February 1788 as a “unique region in this world,” watching the setting sun over the arch of Septimius Severus, the Campo Vaccino, the Colosseum and the ruins of the Palatine, “embellished with wild flowers and cultivated gardens.”

Goethe’s Room On Via Del Corso
During his first stay in Rome (1786–1787), Goethe lived in this part of the building on Via del Corso 18. Although the original furniture has not survived, documents in the display cases trace his journey from Carlsbad, which he left on 3 September 1786, to his life within the German artists’ community here. Evidence such as house registers and bills confirms his presence and everyday routines in what he called the “capital of the world.”

It is possible that Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein painted the famous watercolour Goethe at the Window in this very room. Elements from the drawing—terracotta floor and traditional wooden shutters—have been echoed in the exhibition design. Other sketches by Tischbein show the relaxed, bohemian life that Goethe had longed for in Weimar: shared meals, conversations, and artistic work rather than court duties. In Rome he also befriended the painter Angelika Kauffmann, who painted his portrait; after his departure, she wrote in May 1788 that the day he left was “one of the saddest days” of her life.

Diary of The Italian Journey
Goethe’s travel notes from 1786 trace an intense longing for Italy and, above all, for Rome. Slipping quietly out of Carlsbad before dawn, he races south, often ignoring sights along the way to satisfy his “first need”: to reach the city he has imagined for years. Detours to Lake Garda and Venice briefly delay him, but each diary entry circles back to Rome as his true goal—he even sleeps without undressing so he can depart at first light. On 28 October he finally writes, almost incredulous, that “tomorrow evening Rome!”—a moment he experiences as both the fulfillment of a destiny and the opening of a new life as an artist abroad.

Excursions Around Rome, Naples and Sicily
From Rome, Goethe made frequent excursions into the surrounding countryside, especially to the Alban Hills and to Tivoli, where the renowned landscape painter Jakob Philipp Hackert gave him drawing lessons. Together with Tischbein he travelled to Naples, arriving on 25 February 1787. The city and the dramatic presence of Vesuvius, which Goethe climbed three times, deeply impressed him. A small oil painting by Franz Ludwig Catel (1821), executed en plein air, shows the volcano and the Bay of Naples, while a large watercolour by Tischbein (1787) evokes an idealised southern landscape with a Doric temple reminiscent of those at Paestum.

On 20 March 1787 Goethe embarked for Sicily with the draughtsman Christoph Heinrich Kniep. There he studied the island’s vegetation while reading Homer, later calling Sicily the climax of his Italian journey: “Italy without Sicily leaves no picture in my soul: here is the key to everything.” His intense experience of southern light and colour in landscape and art laid the groundwork for his later Theory of Colours.

The Surroundings Of Rome, Southern Italy And The “Primordial Plant”
From Rome, Goethe made frequent excursions into the nearby countryside, especially the Alban Hills and Tivoli, where the celebrated landscape painter Jakob Philipp Hackert gave him drawing lessons. Together with Tischbein he travelled to Naples, arriving on 25 February 1787. The city and the smoking cone of Vesuvius captivated him; he climbed the volcano three times. Later works such as Franz Ludwig Catel’s small oil of Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples, and Tischbein’s idealised southern landscape with a Doric temple reminiscent of Paestum, recall the sights that so impressed him.

On 20 March 1787, Goethe sailed with draftsman Christoph Heinrich Kniep to Sicily. There, while reading Homer, he pursued his scientific quest for the “primordial plant” (Urpflanze)—a formal principle from which all plant forms might develop. Already on 27 September 1786 in the Botanical Garden of Padua he had sensed that “all plant forms could perhaps develop from one.” In the Palermo Botanical Garden, faced with luxuriant diversity, he wrote: “It’s impossible that it doesn’t exist! How else would I recognise that this or that structure is a plant, if they were not all formed according to a single model?” In his Italian diary he noted the hypothesis “all is leaf,” a simple rule generating infinite variety.

Goethe published his botanical research in 1790 as a study of the “metamorphosis of plants.” The term “primordial plant” disappears, replaced by an interest in the laws of plant formation and in the plant as a dynamic being. His drawings of plants and minerals, made throughout his life, reflect this union of scientific observation and artistic practice: the eye analyses form in nature, the hand records it, and art becomes a way of thinking with and through the living world.

Goethe’s Italian Journey (1786–1788)
In September 1786 Johann Wolfgang Goethe, then 37, set off under adventurous circumstances on the longest and most decisive journey of his life. Already a famous writer and minister of state in Weimar, he left without warning friends, seeking escape from official duties, social expectations and an unfulfilled love for the married Charlotte von Stein. In Italy he hoped for a “rebirth” that would bring him closer to his true vocation, with antiquity as a guiding ideal for both his writing and his art.

To avoid recognition he travelled alone as the merchant “Giovanni Filippo Moeller,” carrying the standard German travel guide of the time and manuscripts promised to his publisher, who had advanced him funds. Supported financially by Duke Carl August, he experienced the first weeks in a state of intense happiness and freedom, recording his impressions in a diary addressed to Charlotte, whom he still could not fully relinquish despite hiding his plans from her. His route led over the Brenner Pass to Lake Garda, then via Verona, Vicenza and Venice, and onward through Ferrara, Bologna, Florence, Perugia and Assisi. After 56 days and some 1,500 km, he entered Rome through the Porta del Popolo on 29 October 1786, later calling it “the capital of the world.” There, in the circle of German artists on the Corso, he found renewed energy and a new way of uniting art, life and scientific curiosity—an experience he would remember as the happiest time of his life.

Goethe’s Roman Household on Via Del Corso
Arriving unexpectedly in Rome, Goethe first lodged in a modest inn before accepting painter Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein’s invitation to share an apartment on Via del Corso, just off Piazza del Popolo. Registered under the alias “Giovanni Filippo Moeller, German, painter,” he chose to live as an artist rather than as a Weimar minister. Research into household records shows that he likely covered most living expenses for his small circle of German friends and artists. Simple furnishings, informal sketches of Goethe in slippers at the window, and evenings spent reading and joking reveal a life stripped of courtly duties, devoted instead to study, friendship, and the rediscovery of himself in the “Eternal City.”

Goethe’s First Days on the Corso
Arriving unexpectedly in Rome, Goethe spent his first night at the modest Locanda dell’Orso and immediately sent word to the painter Johann Wilhelm Tischbein, to whom he had helped secure a Weimar grant. That same evening Tischbein invited him to move into his shared apartment at Via del Corso 18, near Piazza del Popolo. Goethe accepted and soon felt at home among fellow German artists Johann Georg Schütz and Friedrich Bury, all supported by a Roman coachman couple named Collina.

Registered in Santa Maria del Popolo as “Giovanni Filippo Moeller, German, painter, 32,” Goethe presented himself as younger and as an artist rather than a minister. Research into bills and records shows that, thanks to continued salary from Carl August of Weimar, he often covered living costs for the whole household. Daily life was relaxed and unceremonious; drawings by Tischbein show Goethe in simple clothing, looking out onto the Corso, joking with friends or reading. His room was small and sparsely furnished, fitting his wish to live in Rome as a poet and painter, not as a state official. Through Tischbein he met other German-speaking artists and intellectuals, while remaining largely detached from the working world of Italian artists and common Romans. This relative anonymity allowed him to clear his mind, recover inspiration and begin to reinvent himself in the Eternal City.

Goethe’s Room on the Corso
During his first stay in Rome (1786–1787), Johann Wolfgang Goethe lived in this part of the building. The original furnishings are lost, but the room recalls his journey from Carlsbad, which he left secretly on 3 September 1786, and his new life within the artists’ community at Via del Corso 18.

Documents in the showcases confirm Goethe’s stay here and evoke his daily routine in what he called the “capital of the world.” His housemate Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein may have painted the famous watercolour Goethe at the Window in this very room; details such as the terracotta floor and traditional wooden shutters (scuri) informed the design of today’s exhibition. Other drawings by Tischbein capture the carefree, bohemian life that Goethe had long desired in Weimar.

In Rome, Goethe became close friends with the painter Angelika Kauffmann, who portrayed him during his stay. After his departure she wrote on 10 May 1788: “Your farewell penetrated my heart and soul; the day of your departure was one of the saddest days of my life.”

Faust
Goethe began working on the Faust material in 1772–1773, creating the early “Urfaust” in Frankfurt. From this he developed Faust. A Fragment, completed in 1788 and published in 1790, then the expanded Faust. A Tragedy in 1808. Between 1825 and 1831 he wrote Faust. The Second Part of the Tragedy, published in 1832 after his death—work he regarded as his life’s principal task.

Drawing on the 1587 popular book The History of Doctor Johann Fausten and later puppet-theatre versions, Goethe tells of the world-weary scholar Faust, who promises Mephistopheles his soul if the devil can free him from despair and bring constant change. Rejuvenated, Faust seduces Gretchen, whose mother and brother die through his fault; while he and Mephisto revel at Walpurgis Night, Gretchen becomes a child-murderer, repents, and awaits execution, refusing rescue. The first part centers on this “Gretchen tragedy,” while the second turns Faust’s story into a broad parable of humanity.

Tischbein In Rome: History Painting And Allegory
Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein first stayed in Rome from 1779 to 1781. In 1780 he painted the history scene Oxyartes Gives His Daughter Roxane in Marriage to Alexander. The defeated Bactrian ruler Oxyartes sits on his throne while Alexander, at right, stands with his soldiers, offering a slain lion as a gift in his left hand and extending his right to Roxane. Tischbein had been studying Raphael’s works in Rome, including The Marriage of Alexander and Roxane in the Villa Farnesina, based on a Raphael design; the figure of Alexander there served as a model for his own composition.

After a period in Switzerland, Tischbein returned to Rome on 24 January 1783 and painted the Allegory of Poetry and Painting that same year. Poetry sits at left, holding a lyre; Painting, at right, presents a panel and clearly appears dominant. The canvas expresses the painter’s self-confidence: for Tischbein, painting was in no way inferior to poetry, represented in his Roman circle by his later housemate Goethe, who would move into the German artists’ community at Via del Corso 18 on 30 October 1786. Together, the two works document Tischbein’s first and second Roman sojourns: the allegory articulates his ideas about the arts, while the Alexander painting demonstrates his ambition and skill as a history painter.

Goethe and Jakob Philipp Hackert
Goethe met the landscape painter Jakob Philipp Hackert (1737–1807) in Naples in February 1787. Born in Prenzlau, Hackert had trained in Berlin, spent several years in Paris and settled in Rome in 1768, working for Roman nobility and distinguished foreign travellers. In 1786 he was appointed court painter to Ferdinand IV in Naples. When French troops took the city in 1799, he fled to Tuscany and later lived in Florence until his death.

Goethe and Hackert quickly developed a friendship based on mutual respect and similar temperament. In the summer of 1787 they stayed together in Tivoli, where Hackert gave Goethe drawing lessons. Goethe’s high esteem is clear from his request in 1805 for Hackert’s memoirs, which he edited and published as a biography in 1811. Hackert was also a pioneer of travel to Sicily, which lay outside the usual “Grand Tour.” Despite the dangers of piracy and poor infrastructure, he visited the island in 1777 and published etched views of its Greek temples that attracted wide attention. Inspired in part by this example, Goethe travelled to Sicily in spring 1787 and later wrote: “Italy without Sicily leaves no image in the soul: here is the key to everything.”

Toward Rome: Voices from the Italian Journey
In early September 1786 Goethe slipped away from Carlsbad before dawn: “On 3 September at 3 in the morning I crept out of Carlsbad, they wouldn’t have let me go if I hadn’t” (Italian Journey, 6 September 1786). Pressing southward, he noted how narrowly he focused on his goal: “How much I fail to notice to right and left to fulfil just this one goal” (12 September 1786).

He still allowed himself detours for beauty, as at Lake Garda: “I could have been in Verona tonight but there was still a magnificent vision of nature nearby that I did not want to miss.” On 28 September he first saw Venice, “this Beaver Republic,” and soon afterward resolved to pass quickly through Florence to satisfy his longing for Rome: “I shall only pass through Florence and make straight for Rome. I won’t take any pleasure in anything until that first need is satisfied.” On 28 October he wrote, “Well then, tomorrow evening Rome!”—and the next day entered the city that had long been the destination of his desires.

Tischbein in Rome: History Painting and Artistic Pride
During his first stay in Rome (1779–1781), Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein painted the history scene Oxyartes Gives His Daughter Roxane in Marriage to Alexander. The defeated Bactrian ruler Oxyartes sits on his throne, while Alexander stands with his soldiers, offering a slain lion as a gift and extending his right hand to Roxane. Tischbein drew on Raphael’s Marriage of Alexander and Roxane in the Villa Farnesina; Raphael’s figure of Alexander served as a direct model for his own composition.

After a stay in Switzerland, Tischbein returned to Rome on 24 January 1783 and painted Allegory of Poetry and Painting. Poetry, holding a lyre, sits on the left; Painting, holding a panel, sits beside her and clearly dominates. The work reflects Tischbein’s conviction that painting was in no way inferior to poetry—an implicit dialogue with his famous future housemate Goethe, who would move into the German artists’ community at Via del Corso 18 on 30 October 1786 (today the Casa di Goethe). Together, the Alexander canvas and the allegory document his first and second Roman stays: one demonstrating his ambitions as a history painter, the other his ideas about the status of art.

Franz Albert Venus and the Campagna in Watercolour
Franz Albert Venus, who stayed in Rome in 1866–1867 and again in 1869, considered the Roman Campagna one of his preferred motifs, describing it as a “silent sea of finely curved, solidified waves of hills.” The watercolour shown here depicts an unidentified ruin north-east of the city, in the area of today’s Monte Sacro district. On the horizon rises Monte Gennaro, with the village of Palombara Sabina visible to the left.

Next to the ancient structure and in the distant background stand small, tent-like reed huts, typical dwellings of Campagna inhabitants. Despite its many realistic details, the work is above all an atmospheric study. Venus concentrates on the shifting colours of the “waves of hills,” layered in horizontal bands whose rhythm continues in the mountains and clouded sky. Under the summer light, forms seem almost to lose their solidity, and the landscape dissolves into a play of light and colour.

Goethe, Hackert And The Waterfall At Isola Del Liri
Jakob Philipp Hackert (1737–1807), a landscape painter from Prenzlau, settled in Rome in 1768 after years in Berlin and Paris and soon worked for Roman nobles and travelling patrons. In 1786 he was appointed court painter to Ferdinand IV in Naples. When the French conquered the city in 1799 he fled to Tuscany and later lived in Florence. Goethe met Hackert in Naples in February 1787; they quickly developed a friendship grounded in mutual respect and similar temperament. That summer they spent time together in Tivoli, where Hackert gave Goethe drawing lessons. Goethe later revised Hackert’s memoirs and published his biography in 1811.

The painting shown here, executed in 1794, depicts the Cascata del Valcatoio at Isola del Liri (then known as Isola di Sora), south of Frosinone. In the centre of the town, the river Liri splits to form two waterfalls: the Valcatoio, seen here, and the Cascata Grande behind it. Above rises Boncompagni Castle, with the Chapel of Santa Maria delle Grazie to the right and the twin towers of San Lorenzo Martire further back. Hackert first “discovered” this motif for art in 1773, and his detailed, unembellished depiction testifies to an Enlightenment, documentary approach to landscape that Goethe greatly admired. The painting’s later history—from the collection of Jewish merchant Franz Rappolt, through Nazi expropriation for the planned “Hitler Museum,” to post-war restitution and loan to the Casa di Goethe—adds a modern chapter to its biography.

Illustrating Faust: Retzsch, Lindenschmit And Hegenbarth
Friedrich August Moritz Retzsch was among the first artists to tackle Goethe’s Faust in images. As early as 1808 he drew individual scenes, which he showed to Goethe in 1810. In 1816 he published an etching cycle of 26 plates that the poet praised for their “witty compositions” and the appealing character and expression of the figures. The drawing shown here repeats the second etching: Faust and his companion Wagner on their Easter walk, with Mephistopheles lurking at the right in the form of a poodle. Retzsch likely offered the drawing as an alternative to the printed sheet.

Wilhelm von Lindenschmit the Younger depicts Faust in the tavern of Auerbachs Keller, where Mephistopheles makes wine flow miraculously from the table to delight a circle of revellers. Faust, withdrawn and brooding, turns away, unimpressed by the spectacle. The drawing, dating to around 1850, relates to a now-lost painting by Lindenschmit.

Around 1960, Josef Hegenbarth illustrated the moment just before Faust signs the pact with the devil. Faust still hesitates, his head turned back in doubt, while Mephisto, with fleshy nose and sardonic grin, places a hand on his shoulder. A dark line seems to flow from the demon’s body into the scholar’s arm: Faust is already under Mephistopheles’ spell, his writing hand guided by the will of his infernal partner. Across a century and a half, these artists translate Goethe’s text into shifting visual interpretations of temptation, skepticism and surrender.

The Roman Campagna
In the 18th and 19th centuries the rural plain around Rome, the Campagna Romana or Agro Romano, appeared as a marshy, sparsely populated landscape, punctuated by stagnant water where malaria plagued farmers and shepherds in summer. Travellers usually crossed it on the Via Appia, heading toward the Alban Hills and on to Brindisi; the Campagna itself was rarely a destination.

Consequently, few picturesque depictions exist from the 18th century. This changed in the 19th century, when landscape painters began to treat its apparent emptiness as an artistic challenge. Italian, German, Scandinavian and British artists turned their attention to the Campagna and its inhabitants, especially the large herds of cattle and their mounted herdsmen, the butteri, who became favoured subjects in countless paintings.

Visualizing Faust: Retzsch, Lindenschmit, Hegenbarth
Friedrich August Moritz Retzsch was among the first artists to illustrate Goethe’s Faust. As early as 1808 he drew individual scenes and showed them to Goethe in 1810. His etched cycle of 26 plates appeared in 1816 and was praised by the poet for its “witty compositions” and expressive figures. The drawing shown here repeats the second plate, depicting Faust and Wagner on their Easter walk while Mephistopheles appears to the right in the guise of a poodle; Retzsch likely intended it as an alternative to the print.

Wilhelm von Lindenschmit the Younger presents Faust in Auerbach’s Cellar, where Mephistopheles conjures wine from the table for a group of carousing drinkers. Faust, withdrawn and brooding, watches the scene and turns away, unmoved by the coarse magic and revelry. Dating to around 1850, the drawing relates to a now-lost painting by Lindenschmit.

Around 1960, Josef Hegenbarth focused on the moment just before Faust signs the pact. Faust still hesitates, his head turned back in doubt, while Mephisto—marked by a fleshy nose and sardonic grin—rests a hand on his shoulder. A dark line seems to flow from the demon’s body into Faust’s arm, suggesting that the scholar’s hand is already guided by Mephistopheles’ will. Visually, Faust is shown as inwardly captured before the contract is even written.