| Theodor
W. Adorno (1903-1969). German philosopher and music critic.
He visited the main Italian towns. He dedicated a short diary
(perhaps the only text in which he expressly writes about happiness)
to Lucca (in Parva aesthetica, Feltrinelli), a town already
celebrated by Heine. A few days before he died, Adorno went back
to Venice; Botho Straub made a portrait of the philosopher at
the Caffè Florian, in San Marco Square, in his last public
appearance.
|
|
Ludmilla Assing (1821-1880). Writer and correspondent, niece
of Karl-August Varnhagen von Ense. In 1861, after her father’s
death (doctor David Assur who, after his conversion to Christianity
adopted the name Assing and his uncle’s name and published
his papers and diaries), she settled in Florence, where she had
a close collaboration with the Italian republicans. She translated
two German works by Piero Cironi and in 1865 she published his biography
"Vita di Piero Cironi". She met De Gubernatis and collaborated
to his "Rivista Europea". In her house in Florence,
from 1868 to 1879 she created a salon and organized the meetings
of her literary circle. |
| Walter
Benjamin (1892-1940). German philosopher
and literary critic. He often visited Italy and lived in Capri,
Napoli, Siena, Pisa, Lucca, Livorno, Perugia, Rapallo, Portofino,
Marina di Massa, Volterra "a kind of Engadina without snow"
and for a long time in San Remo. He has written a short essay dedicated
to San Gimignano (in "Immagini di città", Einaudi),
and an article signed with Asja Lacis "Neapel" (in "Schriften"
vol. II) in which for the first time he mentions the "porosity"
of the vesuvian city, a term that will be used by Bloch in his "Italian
essays". Benjamin will readapt the text of "Napoli"
for a children’s radio broadcast (in "Burattini, streghe,
briganti", Il melangolo); Benjamin also wrote "La scomparsa
di Pompei ed Ercolano" for children radio (in "Burattini"
cit.). |
| Ernst
Bernhard (1896-1965). German Jungian psychologist. Paediatrician
of Chassidic training, he leaves Berlin and, guided by a premonitory
dream, goes to Rome in 1935 where he introduces the Jungian thought.
He settles in via Gregoriana n.12, in the building where Gregorovius
had lived, and in the summer he goes to the Lake Bracciano. During
the years of the nazi occupation he survives thanks to Tucci, an
orientalist expert in shamanism. In the sixties he becomes a cultural
star in the Rome of "la dolce vita": Federico Fellini
is one of his patients. Robert Bazien was one of his friends, the
founder of Adelphi, a publisher that will be much influenced by
this "chassidic" philosopher. One of the first books
published by Adelphi will be in fact "Mitobiografia"
by Bernhard. |
| Ernst
Bloch (1885-1977). German philosopher. During his long life
he often went to Italy, and especially in the twenties and thirties,
when he studied some Italian areas on which he wrote essays such
as "Notte italiana a Venezia", "Italia, la porosità"
in "Verfremdungen II" ("Geographica", Marietti).
He used to suggest his friends to reach Italy from the south, either
from Sicily or from Africa, in order not to fall into the classicist
myths of the German traveller, which identified Italy with the Renaissance. |
| Rudolf
Borchardt (1887-1945). German writer. He spent most of his life
in Tuscany, around Lucca, he wrote an original middle high German
version of the "Divina Commedia"; he was caught by the
nazi and died near the Italian frontier of Brennero. He wrote some
essays on "Venezia", the Italian "villa",
"Pisa e il suo paesaggio", "Volterra" and
"Da un giardino del Sud" (in "Città italiane",
Adelphi); he dedicated a book to "Pisa, solitudine di un impero"
(Nistri-Lischi), a political-cultural celebration of an non-renaissance
Italy. |
| Oskar
Goldberg (1885-1952). German orientalist and religion historian.
After some paranormal experiences, he published the controversial
"Wirklichkeit der Hebraer" "La realtà degli
ebrei", against which Scholem intervened. In 1934 he lived
in San Remo and, in Benjamin’s ironic words, thanks to one
of his scholars, he used to supply the local newsagent with copies
of "La realtà degli ebrei" while he was at the
casino to experiment his number mysticism. |
| Sigmund
Freud (1856-1939). Austrian physician. He postponed for a long
time his trip to the south, alleging some excuses such as fear of
contagious diseases, or the climate. His trip to his beloved/hated
Rome became a testing bench and Freud felt relieved when he could
confront himself with Michelangelo’s Mosé. In 1895
he goes to Venice and writes about the "inebriation that this
city provokes". Later he will visit Capri, Rapallo, Genova.
In 1901 he finally goes to Rome. It will be the first of his seven
visits to the holy city. At the beginning of his first day in Rome
he goes to San Pietro. The third day he goes to see Michelangelo’s
Mosé. In 1902 he goes to Naples and Sorrento. In 1907 he
visits the old roman Jewish catacombs. In 1912 he proposes his wife
to settle in Rome. |
| Henriette
Herz (1764-1847). Daughter of the Sephardic doctor De Lemos,
after her marriage with Markus Herz she created one of the most
popular cultural salons of the time. Extremely cultured woman, she
spoke numerous languages and taught Hebrew to the young brothers
Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt. From 1817 to 1819 she went to
Italy, and she met her friend Dorothea Schlegel in Rome, where she
began writing an autobiography that will be concluded and published
in 1850 by her friend Joseph Furst on the basis of his accounts
("Henriette Herz. Ihr Leben und ihre Erinnerungen"). |
| Franz
Kafka (1883-1924). Bohemian writer in German language. In 1909
(9th September) he is in Brescia to see an aviation gathering, on
which he writes "Gli aeroplani a Brescia" (in "Confessioni
e diari", Mondadori) From 1910 to 1912 he stays in a clinic
in Riva del Garda and in 1920 in a sanatorium in Merano. He writes
about his Milanese sojourn in "" [….] In his book
"Il processo" "The trial" there are some
echoes of his Italian tour in the penultimate chapter, "Il
cristiano e, fuso con esso, l’italiano diventano palesi trasposizioni
dell’ebraico. […] La trasposizione delle figure in chiave
italiana comincia col pittore Tintorelli…." (Mittner). |
| Karl
Kraus (1874-1936). Austrian writer. At the eve of World War
I he goes three times to Italy during a tormented love story with
the noble Sidonie Nadherny. He has a distressing meeting with Sidonie
in Rome. He also meets some politicians to prevent Italy’s
going to war. |
| Fanny
Lewald (1811-1889). Writer and emancipationist. In 1845, after
the publication of her first three novels, she definitely left her
home and settled in Berlin; then she moved to Italy and lived in
Rome for six months. In Rome she met her future husband, the philologist
Adolf Stahr, and she fulfilled herself as an intellectual. During
her life she visited Italy six times; her travels in Italy are narrated
in literary reports, travel commentary ("Italienisches Bilderbuch"
1847), and travel letters, which were published during her Italian
sojourns by German newspapers and eventually collected in a volume. |
| Karl
Lövith (1897-1973). German philosopher. In 1935 he seeks
refuge in Rome, recommended to Gentile by Heidegger – who
writes about him in a letter to Hannah Arendt to prove he is not
an anti-Semite. While in Rome, Lowith lives in via Gregoriana, via
Bocca di Leone, via delle Sette Sale, and there he meets many Germans
in exile. In his posthumous autobiography and in his letters –
especially those addressed to Leo Strauss – he will depict
the image of a dull Rome of the thirties, where "the spiritual
and political life does not correspond to the tradition of ancient
Rome".. |
| György
Lukács (1885-1971). Hungarian philosopher. In 1908 he
accompanies Irma Seidler to Florence. He also visits Settignano
and Ravenna. In 1911 Lukacs goes back to Florence with Béla
Balazs, and visits Assisi. In the winter 1911-12 he settles in Florence
and writes about his aesthetic theories and philosophy of art. In
1912 he visits Genova, in 1913 he stays in Bellaria (Rimini), where
he meets his future wife. They will go to Venice. |
| Gustav
Mahler (1860-1911). Austrian composer. In 1899 he makes a tour
of Italy with his sister Justine. Between 1908 and 1910, he spends
his holidays in a big house in Toblach (not yet Dobbiaco), where
he writes "Das Lied von der Erde", the Ninth Symphony
and the unfinished Tenth symphony. |
| Fanny
Mendelssohn (1805-1847). Pianist and composer. Elder sister
of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, in 1839 she went to Italy with her
husband – the painter Wilhelm Hensel – and his one-year-old
son. In Italy she visited the most important artistic places and
stayed in Rome for seven months. Her impressions of Italy are narrated
in a travel journal and in some letters she wrote to her family,
all of them published in 1981 as "Italienisches Tagebuch"
(Italian journal); the music she composed expresses her feelings
for the places she visited, in particular the piano cycle "Das
Jahr" (The year). |
| Felix
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847). German composer. He was the
grandson of the philosopher Moses, but grew up following the Luteran
faith; he journeyed through Scotland – country that inspired
him the "Scottish Symphony" - and, immediately after,
he went to Italy. Following the memories of this Mediterranean initiation
he composed the "Italian Symphony". During the years of
Nazism his music was prohibited in public concerts. |
| Dorothea
Schlegel (1764-1839). Writer and translator. Daughter of Moses
Mendelssohn. She married the banker Sinom Veit, with whom she had
two children, and in Berlin she frequented the cultural salon of
Henriette Herz, where she met her second husband Friedrich Schlegel.
While living with Schlegel she began her literary life, publishing
works and translations with his name. From 1818 to 1820 she spent
nearly two years in Rome with her two sons, the painters Johannes
and Philipp Veit, who had settled there. |
| Otto
Weininger (1880-1903). Austrian philosopher. In the last year
of his short life, a few months before killing himself, he makes
a tour of southern Italy: on 23rd July he visits the Sistine Chapel
and the Vatican Museums in Rome. There he writes some notes on Raphael
and Michelangelo that will be published posthumous in "Taschenbuch".
He then travels to Naples, Messina, Taormina, Catania and reaches
Siracusa on 3rd August. He is particularly struck by Etna. On his
way back he writes from Casamicciola (Ischia) "There is little
hope left". At the end of his trip, he commits suicide in
the room where Beethoven had died. |
| Aby
Warburg (1866-1929). German art
historian. Since his dissertation thesis on the mythological paintings
of Botticelli, he dedicates most of his research to the Italian
art and he stays in many renaissance towns. In Florence he meets
the artist Mary Hetz and they spend there a long time studying the
Medicean history. During his numerous trips to Italy, Warburg plans
the foundation of an institute for the study of renaissance culture. |
| Karl
Wolfskehl (1869-1948). Poet in the circle of George, he arrived
in Italy in 1934. Once in Italy, he thought over his Jewish identity
which he found again in his spirit rather than his genealogy. He
thought of going to Palestine but eventually remained in Italy.
He lived in Rome until the political situation forced him to another
exile in New Zealand. Letters from Italy tell us about his Italian
tour ("Briefwechsel aus Italien 1933-1938", Hamburg
1993). |
| Stefan
Zweig (1881-1942). Austrian writer.
He goes to Italy for the first time at 25. Two years later he goes
back to Italy and stays in Bagni di Lucca for a few months, on Heine’s
track. In 1930 he goes to Capo Sorrento to meet Gorki. Between 1937-38
he stays in Naples, where he writes "Magellan", and
for some months he studies at the Ambrosiana Library. |
|
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