Italian Journey 1786-1788

Compiled from letters and journals of 1786 to 1788 and first published in 1816, this travel book follows Goethe from the Alps through Venice, Rome, Naples, and Sicily. He records buildings, pictures, landscape, and geology; Carnival and Holy Week; encounters with artists and society; and his effort to see classical form in living Italy. Rome is the long centre of the stay, with excursions to the south and an ascent of Vesuvius. The book is a working diary of looking and self-education, not a novel: an account of what he saw and how it changed his sense of art and climate.

32 pages of plates. Black slipcase. 28cm.