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I am coming to the end of Goethe's Italian Journey. We are into his second time in Rome, and Goethe has become homesick. Interestingly, Goethe has several friends who are planning to visit Italy soon, among them his good friend Herder. Goethe is actually mortified by this; he has gotten used to being alone and incognito, with free time to make new friends, be among strangers, see art, and work on his own works. He doesn't want his circle from Weimar to come and disturb this, so he's actually made plans to leave Italy before they arrive, without telling them. It feels like something I would do, like what a typical Anon might do.

Nonetheless he continues to see and experience art, and produce art. He reports the results of his play, "Egmont," getting back to Germany and that it seems to be a good success. I envy him for his ability to get things published. He also mentions that, among the older works he wants to finish while still in Italy, Faust is one of them. I presume by this he means Faust Part One, since I know he returned for Part Two much later in his life.

The story of him falling in love with the woman at Castel Gandolfo, only to find out she was engaged to be married, made me cringe and empathize with him. That really did feel like an Anon story.

Also the story of the art admirers paying the ferryman across the Tiber for repeated crossings so they could keep arguing was very funny. And the idea that it used to be a fad to see the Vatican Museum at night by torchlight is a fascinating idea.