Thomas Mann, Goethe, and Italy

6.30 p.m. Opening of the display case dedicated to Thomas Mann on the occasion of his 150th birthday.

7.00 p.m. Projection of the film Death in Venice by Luchino Visconti (1971).

Goethe and Italy played a central role in Thomas Mann’s life, making him an important figure for the Casa di Goethe.
The German writer spent long periods in Italy, including Rome, from an early age and always returned there. His stays in Italy provided crucial inspiration for his literary work. Stories such as Death in Venice and Mario and the Magician were inspired by these stays. In Rome, at Largo Argentina, where he lived with his brother Heinrich from the winter of 1895 onwards, Thomas Mann laid the foundations for his first international success, Buddenbrooks, published in 1901.

Furthermore, he admired Goethe so much throughout his life that his entire work was influenced by him. Early on, he planned a novella about the old Goethe’s passion for Ulrike von Levetzow in Marienbad: inspired by his trip to Venice in 1911, the novella was to deal with the late unhappy love and degradation of an ageing artist. It was not Goethe who became the protagonist of the novella, but Gustav von Aschenbach in the novella Death in Venice.

For this reason, the Casa di Goethe is dedicating a display case to historical editions of Thomas Mann’s writings on Goethe.

Following the presentation of the exhibited works, Luchino Visconti’s film Death in Venice will be shown in its original English version with Italian subtitles.

Foto: Philipp Kester, Thomas Mann – Porträt mit einem Buch in der Hand, 1906, Münchner Stadtmuseum, Sammlung Fotografie (FM-87/61.1013.3), CC BY-SA 4.0