Image: Casa di Goethe, EN
Casa di Goethe is highlighting a lecture by its director, Dr. Gregor H. Lersch, that turns from Goethe’s Italian Journey as a personal experience of self-education and art to the artistic circles in which he moved in Rome. The talk, titled 'Goethe in Rom – Leben und Arbeiten unter Künstlern auf der italienischen Reise' in the source material, focuses on Goethe’s contact with painters, sculptors and writers during his stay in the city, where he studied antiquity, drew and took part in intense discussions about art and aesthetic questions.
According to the newsletter material, the lecture is one of two talks Lersch is giving in Germany this week. The Casa di Goethe email says both events are devoted to Goethe’s artistic environment in Rome and trace a broader history of German artists’ stays in the city, extending from Goethe’s 'Italienische Reise' to the Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo. The Weimar lecture is presented separately in the newsletter as part of the festival 'Wo die Citronen glüh’n – Villa Massimo zu Gast in Weimar'.
The Ilmenau talk is scheduled for Wednesday, 22 July 2026, at 6.30 pm at GoetheStadtMuseum, Goethe-Salon, in Ilmenau, Germany. The source describes Rome as a place of shared artistic practice and mutual inspiration during Goethe’s stay, presenting the city not simply as a destination on a journey but as a working environment shaped by exchange among artists and writers.
The lecture also places Goethe within a longer institutional history. The newsletter says the networks formed around these encounters eventually led, during the 19th century, to institutions that shaped the presence of German art in Rome, naming the Deutscher Künstlerverein, Villa Malta, Villa Strohl-Fern and the Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo. That framing links Goethe’s Roman years to later structures of artistic residency and exchange, though the source does not elaborate beyond that outline.
Casa di Goethe’s newsletter identifies Dr. Gregor H. Lersch as director of the institution in Rome and notes that he is appearing in Germany for the two talks. The museum’s own website material included with the source set gives its address as Via del Corso 18 in Rome and describes Casa di Goethe as an institution of the Arbeitskreis selbständiger Kultur-Institute e.V. (ASKI), funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
The newsletter closes by inviting visitors to the event in Ilmenau. A second lecture, 'Arcadia! Künstleraufenthalte in Rom von Goethe bis zur Villa Massimo', is listed for Friday, 24 July 2026, at 3.30 pm at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, M.-Halbwachs-Auditorium, but the main focus of the announcement remains the Ilmenau lecture on Goethe’s artistic life in Rome.
