Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller

Entrance to the apartment with the 1765 Grand View of Rome by Giuseppe Vasi

Rome, November 8, 1786. My strange, and perhaps whimsical, incognito proves useful to me in many ways that I never should have thought of. As every one thinks himself in duty bound to ignore who I am, and consequently never ventures to speak to me of myself and my works, they have no alternative left them but to speak of themselves, or of the matters in which they are most interested, and in this way I become circumstantially informed of the occupations of each, and of everything remarkable that is either taken in hand or produced. Reiffenstein good-naturedly humours this whim of mine; as, however, for special reasons, he could not bear the name which I had assumed, he immediately made a Baron of me, and I am now called the Baron who lives opposite to the Palace Rondanini. This designation is sufficiently precise, especially as the Italians are accustomed to speak of people either by their Christian names, or else by some nickname.
J. W. Goethe - Italienische Reise (Italian Journey) - Translation by Charles Nisbet.
"Casa di Goethe" is a German cultural institution which has arranged a permanent exhibition of documents and prints related to Goethe's stay in Rome in the apartment in Via del Corso where he lived in 1786-1788. Unlike other memorial houses of writers, e.g. the Keats-Shelley House and the House of Mario Praz, the management have chosen not to attempt to furnish the apartment with XVIIIth century items, thus the exhibition rooms have a very modern appearance and the task of introducing the visitor to Goethe's Rome is performed by some engravings of that period and by drawings by the German artists who lived with him. The visit is of particular interest to those who are familiar with his travel book and the text of this page is based on quotations from it. Other quotations can be found in a page covering what Goethe saw in Rome.

Tischbein's studio, a corner room on Via del Corso and Via della Fontanella which received a lot of light in the afternoon, and a copy of Goethe's portrait by Tischbein (original at Städelsches Kunstinstitut - Frankfurt)

Rome, November 7, 1786. Tischbein has long lived here; he is a sincere friend to me, and during his stay here always cherished the wish of being able one day to show Rome to me. Our intimacy is old by letter though new by presence.
November 18, 1786
The fact that I long maintained a correspondence with Tischbein, and was consequently on the best terms possible with him, and that even when I had no hope of ever visiting Italy, I had communicated to him my wishes, has made our meeting most profitable and delightful; he has been always thinking of me, even providing for my wants.
Dec. 29, 1786. In this world of artists one lives, as it were, in a mirrored chamber, where, without wishing it, one sees one's own image and those of others continually multiplied. Latterly I have often observed Tischbein attentively regarding me; and now it appears that he has long cherished the idea of painting my portrait. His design is already settled, and the canvass stretched. I am to be drawn of the size of life, enveloped in a white mantle, and sitting on a fallen obelisk, viewing the ruins of the Campagna di Roma, which are to fill up the background of the picture. It will form a beautiful piece, only it will be rather too large for our northern habitations. I indeed may again crawl into them, but the portrait will never be able to enter their doors. Goethe
Many Roman painters, e.g. Pompeo Batoni, worked for Grand Tour travellers to whom they sold portraits which showed them on a background of Roman ruins or while admiring some ancient statues.
Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (1751-1829) lived in Italy in 1783-1799. He shared a house in Via del Corso with other painters. He portrayed Goethe lost in his thoughts in a rather unusual and uncomfortable position reminding the viewer of some ancient and Renaissance tombs where the dead is depicted while attending his funerary banquet.

Copy of Andy Warhol's 1982 screen print and acrylic based on Tischbein's painting and a photo of Warhol posing in front of it

February 17, 1787
The great portrait of myself which Tischbein has taken in hand begins already to stand out from the canvass. The painter has employed a clever statuary to make him a little model in clay, which is elegantly draperied with the mantle; with this he is working away diligently, for it must, he says, be brought to a certain point before we set out for Naples, and it takes no little time merely to cover so large a field of canvass with colours.
June 27, 1787
My portrait is succeeding happily; the likeness' is striking, and the conception pleases everybody. Goethe
In 1887 the painting was donated to the Städel Museum of Frankfurt and it soon became an iconic image of Goethe and more in general of German art and culture.
Andy Warhol saw the famous portrait of Goethe during a visit to the Städel. As the quintessence of German culture, it inspired him to create this work and other prints, some of which are likewise in the Städel collection. In 1962 Warhol - a key figure of American Pop Art - began reproducing press photos of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley with the silkscreen technique. Through the serial production of his art in his studio, which he himself referred to as a factory, the classical distinguishing features of the artist - for example subjectivity and originality - recede into the background. At the same time, by staging Goethe as the superstar of the Städel, the city of Frankfurt and German Classicism, Warhol was reflecting on how the mass media have changed our perception of reality.
From the Städel Museum website description of the painting.

Portraits of Goethe during his Roman stay: (left) XIXth century copy by Eduard Ritchl of the original by Angelika Kauffmann; (right) plaster cast of a marble bust by Alexander Trippel

June 27, 1787
Angelica is also painting me, but to no purpose; it surely vexes her that it will not be a likeness, and a success; her picture is a pretty fellow, to be sure, but not a trace of me.
August 28, 1787
Have I already told you that Trippel is working at my bust? The Prince of Waldeck ordered it of him. He has by this time almost finished it, and it makes a good whole. It is worked in a very solid style. When the model is done he will take a gypsum cast from it, and then at once begin the marble, which he wishes, finally, to work out from life; for what can be done in this material can be attained in no other.
Narrative - August 1787
An exchange of ideas in the highest degree agreeable and instructive, having, too, an immediate relation to my wishes and purposes, I opened with the sculptor Trippel in his studio as he was modelling my bust that he had to execute in marble for the Prince of Waldeck. No conditions could have been more favourable for a special study of the human figure, and for enlightenment on its proportions both fixed and varying.
Narrative - September 1787
My bust is a great success. Everyone is pleased with it. Certainly, it is worked in a beautiful and noble style, and I have no objection to the impression being left on the world that I looked like it. Goethe

(left) Copy of a watercolour by Tischbein portraying Goethe at the window of his room; (right) windows of the apartment from Via della Fontanella, a side street of Via del Corso, one of them is of Goethe's room

Narrative - April 1788
Seeing that when Tischbein returned from Rome, for the sake of getting us all comfortably lodged, I would have to change my quarters, and seeing that the upper storey of our house happened to be empty, I did not neglect renting it and taking possession of it, so that when he returned Tischbein might find everything ready in the lower storey. The upper rooms were like the lower, except that the back windows had a most charming out-look on our house-garden and the gardens of the neighbourhood, a view which was open on all sides, the house being a corner one. Here lay displayed before you the most variegated gardens regularly divided by walls, and planted in endless variety; and, to glorify this paradise of greenery and blossom, nature was heightened everywhere by a simple, noble style of architecture; garden-salons, balconies, terraces, as also an open loge on the backs of the higher houses, interspersed with all the trees and plants of the district. Goethe
Goethe moved to the upper apartment shortly before leaving Rome. He might have spent many hours at the window of his room watching the slopes of Monte Pincio towards Piazza del Popolo which at the time were covered by vineyards and gardens which belonged to the Augustinian monks of S. Maria del Popolo.

Goethe's Room with an ink drawing by Tischbein showing Goethe and a pet cat (copy from Weimar Museum)

December 25, 1786
Our old hostess, when she comes to make my bed, is generally followed by her pet cat. Yesterday I was sitting in the great hall, and could hear the old woman pursue her avocation within. On a sudden, in great haste, and with an excitement quite unusual to her, she opens the door, and calls to me to come quickly and see a wonder. To my question what was the matter, she replied the cat was saying its prayers. Of the animal she had long observed, she told me, that it had as much sense as a Christian- but this was really a great wonder.
Narrative - April 1788
This new lodging of mine now invited us to dispose in congenial order and favourable light, a number of gypsum casts which had by degrees been gathered about us; and now, for the first time, did we properly enjoy a highly valuable possession. (..) The first rank in our estimation was held by Juno Ludovisi, who was all the more prized and reverenced by us that the original was only seldom, and by good chance, to be seen, and we could not but deem it a signal happiness to have it always before our eyes. (..) Some smaller Junos, too, were placed beside it for the sake of comparison, then, also, in particular, busts of Jupiter. Goethe

Drawing of the Palatine ruins by Goethe

November 10, 1786
Yesterday I was on the Palatine, on the top of which are the ruins of the palace of the Caesars, which stand there like walls of rock. Of all this, however, no idea can be conveyed! In truth, there is nothing little here; although, indeed, occasionally something to find fault with, - something more or less absurd in taste, and yet even this partakes of the universal grandeur of all around.
16 June, 1787
The past few days I have been at Tivoli, and have seen one of the first spectacles of nature. The waterfalls there with the ruins, and the whole complexity of landscapes, are of a class of subjects, acquaintance with which is an enrichment of our whole nature to its utmost reach. At Tivoli I was very wearied from walking and drawing in the heat. I was, much of the time, out of doors with Herr Hackert, who has an incredible mastery in copying nature, and in at once imposing a distinct form on his drawing. In these few days I have learnt a great deal from him. (..) Herr Hackert has praised and blamed me, and further assisted me. - Half in joke, half in earnest, he advised me to stay eighteen months in Italy, and practise myself according to good rules, after which time he promised me I should have pleasure in my work. I see well enough, too, what, and in what manner, a man must study to overcome certain difficulties under the burden of which he otherwise labours his whole life long.
5 July, 1787
In drawing, I go on cultivating taste and hand. I have begun to ply architecture more seriously as far as the conception is concerned, I mean - for the execution needs a life-time. (..) Whatsoever is beautiful, grand, venerable, I will see and appreciate with my own eyes. The only method by which this is possible is that of re-production, that of copying the objects under consideration.
1 August, 1787
In landscape and in drawing generally, I must advance, cost what it will. Goethe

1789 Essay on the Roman Carnival which was eventually included in "Italian Journey": (left) frontispiece depicting some ancient Roman masks; (right) illustration by Georg Melchior Kraus

Feb 21, 1787. Ash Wednesday
The folly is now at an end. The countless lights of yesterday evening were, however, a strange spectacle. One must have seen the Carnival in Rome to get entirely rid of the wish to see it again. (..) However, as imitation is out of the question, and cannot be thought of here, I send you, to amuse the children, some drawings of carnival masks, and some ancient Roman costumes, which are also coloured.
February 1788 - Narrative
I observed minutely the course of the follies, and how withal everything went off in a certain prescribed form and appropriateness. Thereupon I noted down the particular events in their order, a preparation which, later on, I used for the essay appended. At the same time I requested my house-mate, Georg Schutz, to make a hasty drawing and colouring of the particular masks, a request which, with his usual courtesy, he complied with. These drawings were afterwards etched in quarto, and illuminated according to the originals by Georg Melchior Kraus, of Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Director of the Free Drawing Institute at Weimar, for the first edition published by Unger, an edition now growing rare. Goethe

Portraits of Goethe before and after his Roman stay: (left) 1776 Etching by Daniel Niklaus Chodowiecki, a German printmaker, after a painting by Georg Melchior Kraus; (right) Goethe in 1823 at Weimar

Goethe wrote Italian Journey many years after his travels. The book was published in 1816-1817 with additional chapters in 1829 which explains some remarks on events which occurred after 1788. It is a literary work by an old man and a celebrity of his time based upon letters and a journal written when he was in his thirties, an autobiography of a key passage of his life and of the development of his thought.
The image used as background for this page is based on a 1982 silhouette of Goethe by Alois Janak, a German artist born in 1924.

1801-1805 Tischbein sheets from "Homer nach Antiken Gezeichnet", a Homeric compendium illustrated from vases, reliefs, etc.: (left) Greek heroes; (right) Homer, based on a bust at Musei Capitolini

November 7, 1786
The more I become acquainted with Tischbein's talents, as well as his principles and views of art, the higher I appreciate and value them. He has laid before me his drawings and sketches; they have great merit, and are full of high promise. Goethe
Today the German painter is best known as a printmaker.

See the houses of:
Hendrik Christian Andersen
Blanceflor Boncompagni Ludovisi
Pietro Canonica
Isa and Giorgio de Chirico
Mario Praz
Keats-Shelley