Minister of State for Culture and Media Wolfram Weimer and Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli visit Casa di Goethe

 

On Friday, 23 January 2026, the Minister of State for Culture and Media, Wolfram Weimer, and the Italian Minister of Culture, Alessandro Giuli, visited Casa di Goethe in Rome as part of the German-Italian government consultations.

After a guided tour of the museum, Wolfram Weimer and Gregor H. Lersch, Director of the Casa di Goethe, presented the new German-Italian cooperation project Auf den Spuren von Goethes Italienischer Reise (In the Footsteps of Goethe’s Italian Journey). Minister of State Weimer said: ‘We are thus reviving the “Italian Journey” and creating a pilgrimage route in Goethe’s footsteps. In doing so, we are giving the Italiensehnsucht, the longing for Italy, a new source of inspiration.’

Gregor H. Lersch explained: “We are very pleased about the new initiative, which will further promote Goethe’s Italian Journey – the central theme of the Casa di Goethe – internationally. As a first step, we are currently developing a digital game in which Goethe’s route can be explored from different perspectives. In addition, an exhibition is planned for autumn 2026 in Rome, which will be dedicated, among other things, to the reception of Goethe in Italian art and literature, building a bridge from Goethe’s time to the present day.”

Early in the morning, the two ministers signed a memorandum of understanding for the cooperation project on Goethe’s Italian Journey and for the extension of the Mazzucchetti-Gschwend Translation Prize, which, in cooperation with the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo, the Goethe-Institut Italy and the Casa di Goethe, honours the work of translators as indispensable mediators between cultures.

Foto: © Andrea Veneri 

An engaging evening full of new stories to be discovered with OTHER FORMS OF SENSING – 120 years of Villa Romana Florenz in which Casa di Goethe, on December 4th, 2025, has been transformed into an experimental space with site specific works, performances and installations. Special thanks to the artists fellows of Villa Romana Raul Walch, Sajan Mani, Chaveli Sifre, Elia Nurvista, and ot Elena Agudio and Mistura Allison, who, with the moderation of Gregor H. Lersch have given a deep insight into the life and history of Villa Romana.

In collaboration with Villa Romana, Florenz

Sponsored by Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung

With the kind support of the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo

Photos: @ Andrea Veneri

Claudia Nordhoff, curator of the exhibition “Italy in lines. Master Drawings by Christoph Heinrich Kniep”, gives a lecture at the Goethemuseum Düsseldorf on 15 October on the subject of “Christoph Heinrich Kniep, Goethe’s illustrator. An artist’s life in Rome and Naples”.

The lecture will trace the life of the artist Christoph Heinrich Kniep, who travelled from Hamburg to Rome to join the German artist community there, and finally to Naples, where Kniep lived and worked for forty years. His journey with Goethe will be examined in detail, as will his work in Rome and Naples, where his drawings were highly sought after by travellers.

Photo: Christoph Heinrich Kniep (1755-1825): Ideal landscape with Pyramus and Thisbe and echoes of the Bay of Palermo with Monte Pellegrino. Washed ink over pen and ink drawing, 1787. From the collection of the Goethe Museum/Anton and Katharina Kippenberg Stiftung

On 24 September, we inaugurated the exhibition ‘Italy in Lines. Master Drawings by Christoph Heinrich Kniep’, curated by Claudia Nordhoff, with a large audience very interested in the highly detailed landscapes of the German artist who accompanied Goethe on his journey to Sicily.

The exhibition is open until 11 January 2026. We look forward to seeing you there!

An exhibition in collaboration with the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Directorate of Mueums

With kind support of the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung and the Tavolozza Foundation

At the Museum Casa di Goethe, preparations are underway for a major exhibition of Kniep’s work, which will open on 24 September. Before that, however, our colleague Claudia Nordhoff will be giving a lecture on this unique draughtsman and Goethe’s travelling companion in Sicily on 3 July at 6 p.m. in Hildesheim, Kniep’s native town. The event is being organised by the Hildesheim Heritage and History Society, which is commemorating the city’s famous son. We are delighted about this connection between the Casa di Goethe and Hildesheim and wish the audience there an entertaining and informative evening!

We are delighted to announce the publication of the volume Rudolf Jacobs – Ein Bremer Partisan in Norditalien 1944 by author and reporter Ulrike Petzold. She conducted her detailed research for this book partly during her scholarship stay at the Casa di Goethe 2021.

The book will now be presented on 7 May at 6 p.m. at the Centro Studi Memoria in Rete di via Valle 6, La Spezia.

Rome is the capital of the Baroque. Famous architects designed the squares and palaces: Carlo Maderno and Francesco Borromini. All of them men. But there was also a female architect who helped shape Rome. It’s time to get to know Plautilla Bricci.

The art historian and author Laura Helena Wurth wrote a detailed radio feature for Deutschlandfunk about the extraordinary architect during her scholarship stay at Casa di Goethe, which can be heard here:

https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/rom-barock-architektin-plautilla-bricci-100.html

Lectures

As part of the Literature Parade German as a guest language at #SalTo24, the Casa di Goethe Museum presents LYRIK UM 12 – POETRY AT 12

FRIDAY, 10 MAY 2024 – 12.00 A.M -1.00 P.M. – OVAL V22
Poetry at 12
Fragile present

With Simone Lappert (längst fällige verwilderung. Diogenes), Jan Wagner (Steine & Erden. Hanser Berlin), moderated by Gregor H. Lersch, Museum Casa di Goethe

How does contemporary poetry reflect our complex present? The texts by Simone Lappert (b. 1985) from Switzerland and Jan Wagner (b. 1971) from Germany focus on themes such as awakening, emancipation and the remarkable nature of the everyday.

SATURDAY, 11 MAY 2024 – 12.00 A.M -1.00 P.M. – OVAL V22
Poetry at 12
People, animals, landscapes

With Anja Kampmann (Il cane ha sempre fame, La nave di Teseo), Eva Maria Leuenberger (dekarnation & kyung, droschl), moderated by Gregor H. Lersch, Museum Casa di Goethe

The beauty and destruction of nature, the human body and the relationship to animals and plants are all powerfully visualised in the poems of German poet Anja Kampmann (b. 1983) and her Swiss colleague Eva Maria Leuenberger (b. 1991).

SUNDAY, 12 MAY 2024 – 12.00 A.M -1.00 P.M. – OVAL V22
Poetry at 12
Values in motion

With Barbara Juch (BARBARA, Verlagshaus Berlin), Sabine Scho (The origin of values, VATMH e. V.), moderated by Maria Carolina Foi, IIC Berlin

The Austrian poet Barbara Juch (born 1988) meets the German Sabine Scho (born 1970) here. With Juch, the scenes of everyday life and here even sport become poetry, whereas Scho sets off on a journey in search of the origins of human values.

All pictures: Literatur Parade © MBruno CloseUp

The poets:

Barbara Juch © Stefi Juch

Barbara Juch, born in 1988 in Klagenfurt and raised in Ferlach, lives in Vienna. She studied American Literature in Vienna and New York, as well as Critical Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Her poetry debut Barbara (2020) and her poetological essay Sport (2023) were published by Verlagshaus Berlin. Juch teaches at the Institute for Language Arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Anja Kampmann © Dirk Skiba

Anja Kampmann, born in Hamburg in 1983, lives in Leipzig and works as a poet, novelist and translator. Her poetry collections Proben von Stein und Licht and Der Hund ist immer hungrig have been published by Hanser, as has her novel Wie hoch die Wasser steigen (High As The Waters Rise). The novel has been translated many times and was a finalist for the National Book Award in the USA. Her poetry has been honoured with various prizes, most recently the Günter Kunert Literature Prize for Poetry and the Marie Luise Kaschnitz Prize.

Simone Lappert © Livio Baumgartner

Simone Lappert, born in Aarau, Switzerland in 1985, studied literary writing at the Swiss Institute of Literature in Biel and lives in Zurich. Her debut novel Wurfschatten (Metrolit) was published in 2014. Her novel Der Sprung was published by Diogenes in 2019 and was nominated for the Swiss Book Prize. Her poetic debut längst fällige verwilderung – gedichte und gespinste (Diogenes) followed in 2022. The book received a literary prize from the city of Zurich and was included in the 2023 Poetry Highlights.
Simone Lappert is president of the Basel International Poetry Festival, a member of the jury of the Basel Poetry Prize and was Swiss curator of the Babelsprech.International poetry project. Her literary work has been promoted and awarded several times.

Eva Leuenberger © AF

Eva Maria Leuenberger, born in Bern, studied at the Bern University of the Arts and now lives in Biel. Her work has received several awards, including the Basel Poetry Prize (2020), two literary prizes from the Canton of Bern (2020 and 2022), the Orphil Debut Prize of the City of Wiesbaden (2020) and the Düsseldorf Poetry Debut Prize (2021).

Sabine Scho © private

Sabine Scho, born in 1970, is a photographer and installation artist. She lived in São Paulo from 2006-2014 and now lives in Berlin and Rome. All her texts are located in the border area of photography, drawing, image and installation. Most recently published: Tiere in Architektur, Kookbooks 2013; The Origin of Senses together with Andreas Töpfer, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin 2015; Haus für einen Boxer, Sabine Scho, Sebastian Felix Ernst and Golden Diskó Ship, Hatje Cantz 2021; The Origin of Values, Sabine Scho and Matthias Holtmann. Edited by VATMH e. V., Berlin 2021. 2018/19, German Prize for Nature Writing 2018. Fellow of the German Academy Villa Massimo Rome 2019/2020.

Jan Wagner © Alberto Novelli – Villa Massimo

Jan Wagner, born 1971 in Hamburg, lives in Berlin. In addition to poetry (most recently Steine & Erden, Hanser Berlin 2023), he publishes translations (Charles Simic, Margaret Atwood, Ted Hughes, Dylan Thomas, Simon Armitage, Matthew Sweeney), essays and radio plays. Variazioni su un barile di pioggia (Einaudi 2020) and Autoritratto con sciame d’api (Bompiani 2022) were published in Italian translation by Federico Italiano. He was awarded the Leipzig Book Fair Prize (2015) and the Georg Büchner Prize (2017), among others.

In collaboration with

Bonn/Rome, 9 February 2024

For the sixth time, the jury for the Casa di Goethe scholarship of the Karin und Uwe Hollweg Stiftung (Karin and Uwe Hollweg Foundation) has selected scholarship holders for a working residency in Rome. Since 2013, the scholarship has enabled cultural professionals, such as authors, academics or translators, whose work is dedicated to German-Italian cultural exchange, to live and work for two months in the Museum Casa di Goethe in the historic centre of Rome. The museum is organised by the Arbeitskreis selbständiger Kultur-Institute e. V. (AsKI). 

The German-Italian jury (Francesca Melandri, Rome; Prof. Dr Dieter Richter, Bremen; PD. Dr Susanna Brogi, Nuremberg) selected eight scholarship holders who will be guests at the Casa di Goethe from summer 2024:

·       Wolfgang Adenberg, author, develops a 10-part television series as a “sitcom” about the life of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

·       Mohamed Amjahid, journalist and author, investigates the history of Italian workers in Germany and their culinary culture

·       Dr. Sibylle Benninghoff-Lühl, literary scholar, researches the importance of the botanical garden and herbarium in Rome for Goethe’s botanical studies

·       Radek Krolczyk, author and art critic, goes in search of traces of the writer Peter O. Chotjewitz and writes an essay about his time in Italy

·       Dr. Theresia Prammer, author and translator, conducts a research into Italian dialect poetry

·       Stefan Weidner, author and translator, translates the ancient Arabic, pre-Islamic Mu’allaqat poems anew into German

·       Levin Westermann, author, writes a cycle of poems dealing with the rise and fall of the Roman Empire

·      Laura Helena Wurth, journalist and curator, creats a radio feature reconsidering the architecture of Rome with a focus on Plautilla Bricci, among others

We would like to thank the Karin und Uwe Hollweg Stiftung for its long-standing support of the scholarship programme.

For further information please contact: AsKI, Prinz-Albert-Str. 34, 53113 Bonn, Tel. 0049/0228/224860;  info@aski.org
Casa di Goethe, Via del Corso 18, I – 00186 Rome, Tel. 0039/06/32650412;
info@casadigoethe.it

From 24 March 2024

The Museum Casa di Goethe in Rome is celebrating its 25th anniversary by opening up new perspectives on its permanent exhibition. Students from the Weißensee Art Academy Berlin were invited to design creative interventions to introduce contemporary takes and new observations into the presentation of the institution’s collections, thereby connecting the museum with contemporary society.

The Director of the Casa di Goethe, Dr. Gregor H. Lersch, sees his mission in reinvigorating and reexamining the role of the museum as a cultural link between Italy and Germany against the backdrop of European history and modern developments. In November last year, the Casa di Goethe cooperated with students on the Visual Communication program of the Weißensee Art Academy Berlin, who were invited to work together with on-site experts to analyze the museum and its collections. A workshop conducted with students from the “Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma” also integrated Roman and broader Italian perspectives into the conceptual process. The students developed a special formal vocabulary for the new exhibition elements and interventions.

“The ‘intervenzioni’ are an important first step in this transformation, linking Goethe’s Italian journey much more closely with the here and now. In the apartment in the Via del Corso, in which Goethe and other artists lived from 1786 to 1788, new, innovative perspectives on the Italian journey, the German enthusiasm for Italy, and the complexities of contemporary European history are being developed,” explains Gregor H. Lersch, the museum’s director. The ‘intervenzioni’ can be experienced directly by visitors and are highly visible. It is just a short step from Goethe’s studies of nature to a tactile sensory cabinet, from his surviving travel descriptions of southern Italy as a contact zone to encounters with North Africa, or from historical travel guides to the Lonely Planet. Central questions concerning contemporary Europe are woven into the exhibition on Goethe’s life and times, such as the tense relationship between North and South, the question of the significance of women for Goethe, or the memory of National Socialism. In the ‘intervenzioni’, the story of the Jewish father Guido Zabban are told for the first time: he survived the German occupation in 1943/44 hidden in the mezzanine floor on Via del Corso 18.