Italian journey. Goethe I.V.

In 1786, thirty -year -old Johann Wolfgang Goethe went to Italy. He traveled incognito, under the name of the merchant Melller, and visited Lake Garda, Verona, Vicenza, Venice, Bologna, Rome and the Albanian Mountains, Naples and Sicily. “We are all - pilgrims seeking to Italy; With gullible joy, we worship the scattered bones of the dead, ”Goethe wrote in Venice. In 1788, the poet returned to his homeland, and in 1816–1817. For the first time, the text of his "Italian journey" was published. Being written many years after the author returned from the trip, Goethe's composition differed from traditional travel notes. But, based on the diaries and letters of those years, the “Italian journey” still stores the freshness of impressions supplemented by mature thoughts and polished to genuine literary perfection.

A wonderful fact: Joseph Brodsky, making his famous list of books that everyone should read, in addition to Faust, included another work of Goethe - a delightful “Italian journey.”