Over the years, Goethe had been conveyed too many official duties which threatened to stifle his literary productivity. He therefore sought a leave of absence which in 1786 was granted by Duke Carl August for an unlimited period of time. In September he departed for Italy. He found the regenaration he had hoped for to such an extent that in his letter from Rome he was able to write to his mother: “I shall return as a new man and live to the greater pleasure of myself and my friends.”

This letter can be seen in one of the first showcases in the room devoted to his Italian journey (1st floor). Placed in another case the fair copy of the fifth Römische Elegie (Roman Elegy), a gift from Goethe to Fritz Jacobi, shows how Goethe felt “much inspired on classical soil”in Rome. In a circle of German artists, all full of the joy of living, the spirit and the artistic sense of proportion came alive for Goethe.

A pen-and-ink drawing by Friedrich Bury, along with other works by those artists, gives a vivid impression of the way Goethe evolved his own classical canon of art in the midst of these fellow creative spirits. The next room is devoted to Goethe’s first and his second stay in Rome and to his excursion to Sicily.