Goethe, translation of Carlo Poerio’s Iphigenia found after 200 years

The decisive impetus for the identification of the manuscript of Iphigenia in Weimar came from Reinhold Köhler, who worked as a librarian at the Grand Ducal Library (now the Library of Duchess Anna Amalia) from 1856 and as its director from 1881. Thanks to his friendship with Poerio’s nephew, Vittorio Imbriani, he reconstructed Ksw, Köhler published in 1882 a fundamental study on the period spent by Poerio in Weimar and on his relationship with Goethe. Francesca Fabbri has taken up this trend and managed to definitively attribute the manuscript to Poerio. Parallel to his research in Weimar, Fabbri made another discovery: he found the autograph manuscript of “The Bride of Corinth” among the papers of Ottilie von Goethe in the Newberry Library in Chicago. This means that both translations that Poerio gave to Goethe can now be documented for the first time.

The discovery will give rise to a series of initiatives also in Italy, at the University of Tor Vergata, Goethe’s house and the Italian Institute of Germanic Studies. A fruitful collaboration in view of other Goethean projects and the bicentenary of 2032. In particular, after the stage reading carried out by the Zip Zine association (with Barbara Giordano in the role of Iphigenia) on 24 and 25 September on the terrace of the Italian Institute of Germanic Studies, we continue on 1 December with the exhibition of Poerio’s manuscript at the House of Goethe (for the exhibition ‘Et in Arcadia ego. Goethe in dialogue with Guercino, Raphael and Poerio’). A meeting follows on 9 December, again at Goethe’s house, attended by a group of scholars coordinated by Gabriella Catalano, Francesca Fabbri, Mario Marino and Valerio Camarotto. It will be the occasion in which the work will be presented in the annotated edition, to be published in 2027 by the editions of the Italian Institute of Germanic Studies. Here, in February 2027, a conference will be held, ‘Translating Goethe in Italy’, curated by Gabriella Catalano and Giovanni Sampaolo. On December 15th it will be the turn of Tor Vergata where the director Cesare Lievi will be present: together with Lucia Mor he will talk about his translation of Goethe’s Iphigenia, the last one made in Italy.