Goethe's Italian Journey: From Carlsbad to Sicily

At 3 o'clock in the morning of 3 September 1786, Goethe stole out of Carlsbad without a word to the friends who had celebrated his birthday there on 28 August. "Otherwise I should not have been allowed to depart quietly," he wrote. He took only a portmanteau and a knapsack and climbed alone into a post-chaise. He travelled incognito as a German painter named Johann Philipp Möller.

Location precision: The diary names Carlsbad, not a house or street, so the pin marks the town.

On 8 September he left Mittenwald at 6 in the morning under a sharp wind that cleared the sky. "The cold was such as one looks for only in February," he noted. On the Brenner he saw a larch for the first time. The pass, one of the major Alpine crossings, still marks the border between Austria and Italy; Goethe wrote his entry here that evening.

Location precision: He wrote at a resting-place on the Brenner; the pin marks the pass itself.

A contrary wind forced Goethe's boat into Malcesine, the first Venetian spot on the lake's eastern shore. He sat in the castle courtyard to draw the old tower, and soon a crowd gathered. A man declared drawing was not allowed and tore his paper. Officials even suspected he was a spy for Emperor Joseph. The castle is now famous for his drawings, and a museum and a bust honour him on site.

Visitor guidance: The castle has a museum and a bust of Goethe.

The Arena was the first major ancient monument Goethe met. He had hoped to see it on the evening he arrived in Verona. In his diary he praised the Veronese for the high preservation of the building, made of reddish marble whose worn steps are continually restored. He noted with surprise that the popular pallone game was not played inside it.

At 5 o'clock on the evening of 28 September 1786, Goethe saw Venice for the first time, passing from the Brenta into the lagoons. He had come from Padua on the public vessel along the Brenta, in good company, and called the passage highly agreeable. The city had long been, in his words, a hollow name. He spent 17 days in Venice before heading south.

Location precision: The diary describes arriving over the lagoon and the city generally, not one building.

In Rome Goethe lived with his friend, the painter Tischbein, in the house now numbered Via del Corso 18. He was there from October 1786 until February 1787, and again from June 1787 until April 1788; when Tischbein moved to Naples, Goethe took over his spacious studio. Here he finished his play Iphigenia in Tauris. Since 1997 the rooms have been a museum on his Italian years.

Visitor guidance: Museum at Via del Corso 18 with a permanent exhibition on his life in Italy.

In Naples in March 1787 Goethe climbed Vesuvius in unsettled weather, its summit wrapped in cloud. He took a carriage to Resina, then a mule, then went on foot across the lava of 1771, already covered with moss. At the old crater he found fresh lava only two months and fourteen days old. He made two excursions up the then-active volcano.

Location precision: Goethe's route up the mountain is described in stages, so the pin marks the volcano's summit.

On 9 April 1787, in Sicily, Goethe spent a whole day on the "stupidities" of Prince Pallagonia, as he spelled it. The villa at Bagheria, 15 km from Palermo, is known for the monster statues with human faces that line its garden and wall, earning it the name Villa of Monsters. Goethe was one of several Grand Tour travellers it fascinated. The villa is partially open to the public.

Visitor guidance: The villa is partially open to the public.

On 7 April Goethe wrote that the public gardens close to the roadstead were "the most wonderful place in the world." On 17 April, sitting there, he asked how one could call a form a plant unless all were shaped after one original type, and found the many shapes more similar than different. Villa Giulia, Palermo's first public park, is the likely garden. After Easter 1788 he set out from Rome for Weimar.

Location precision: Goethe says only "the public gardens" near the roadstead; Villa Giulia, east of the Botanical Garden, is the likely match.

Visitor guidance: The main entrance is on Lincoln Street.