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Goethe
Goethe considered Vicenza the most interesting Italian town, excepting Rome, from an artistic point of view. The reason was Andrea Palladio (1508-1580): as soon as he arrived at Vicenza, the poet rushed to visit the Olympic Theatre and the other palaces designed by this great architect whom he addressed to only words of unconditioned admiration. Goethe also contributed to promote Palladio's art beyond the Italian borders and to spread his fame all over the world.
Journey to Italy
On 3rd September 1786 Goethe left Karlsbad for Italy. That was a sudden departure, in the dead of night, under a false name, and a lot of people interpreted it as an ‘escape’. The poet had broken off the tormented love affair with baroness von Stein; however he went on corresponding with her leaving a lot of letters. He had also given up his several public offices that took him away from his literary activity. Therefore the poet crossed Brennero pass looking for peace, with the intention of giving free play to his own inclinations beyond any protocol. He passed from Verona to Vicenza, then to Padua and Venice, where he had stayed for long time; then to Rome that was the top of his interests, and finally to Naples and Palermo. He had to spend only some weeks in this journey; on the contrary it went on for over two years. Goethe had stayed in Vicenza from 19th to 26th September 1786. Then he would have come back, for a short period, in 1790.
Itinerary 1
During the week he had spent in Vicenza, Goethe was a man with relieved heart. In fact, after taking off his travelling boots and clothes, he liked to mingle with the people appraising men's manners and the uncommon beauty of some curly dark-haired women. He walked through Piazza dei Signori, where there is the Palladian Basilica, the first work of this architect he admired so much. His journals draw the nice picture of the poet refreshing himself with a bunch of grapes under its arcades. He also celebrated the strong articulation of the Loggia del Capitaniato, another work of Palladio's maturity. This monumental space is closed by the building of Pawnshop, former centre of the Public Library; the poet visited it to honour the memory of its founder, the jurist Bertolo. His admiration for scientists was shown by his visits to the great botanic Turra and the architect Bertotti Scamozzi, direct successor of Palladio's art, as well as author of "The learned foreigner", a sort of ‘baedeker’ of that time. Then he walked along the avenue Corso Palladio and visited the Basilica of S. Corona [Holy Crown], where he was impressed by a painting by Veronese representing the three Kings adoring the Holy Child. Further on, the so-called Palladio's House inspired high thoughts in Goethe and the desire of seeing it included in a painting by Canaletto. Then the main avenue leads into a widening surrounded by Palazzo Chiericati, the most important urban house designed by Palladio, and the Olympic Theatre, another masterpiece of this architect: Goethe described it with impassioned words "a theatre of ancient style, but of small proportions and inexpressibly fine...". Here Goethe, mingled in the audience, had a good time attending a show of the famous Olympic Academy. On the contrary the night the poet spent at Eretenio Theatre was completely different: the performance was the Rape in Seraglio and the audience frankly showed to like the singer's beauty very much.
Itinerary 2
Then Goethe visited the villa "Rotonda" [the Round], the top of Palladio's art, just outside the town walls. This villa has the shape of a temple and dominates the countryside crossed by Bacchiglione river. And the poet wrote: "Maybe architectural art has never reached such a level of magnificence". Not far away, at Villa Valmarana of Dwarfs, he met Tiepolos' painting: without knowing he was seeing the works of father and son, he judged the sublime style of the former higher than the natural style of the latter.
Then Goethe walked up the arcades of the Sanctuary of Mount Berico. He was not excited by the Baroque church nor by the great painting by Veronese; on the contrary, some years before, this same picture had aroused contrasting feelings in his father Kaspar: admiration for art, scandal for seeing Jesus sitting at a sumptuous table. The poet rather remembered the nice meeting with a veiled woman. "Would to God" – he stated – "Palladio had left a design of an edifice for Our Lady of Mount Berico... we should have seen things that can neither be imagined now!".
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