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. In 1788, the poet returned to his homeland, and in 1816–1817. He saw the light of his "Italian journey." This essay differed from traditional travel notes in that many years after the author returned from the trip. 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. Joseph Brodsky, making his own list of works that every person should read in order to support at least a “basic conversation”, in addition to Faust, included another work of Goethe - a delightful “Italian journey”.