Bolzano’s reputation as a tourist destination has its origins in the Romantic movement of the 18th century. The Romantics’ focus on the beauty of nature helped to form a view of the mountains as a place to be explored and understood, not just an obstacle to be overcome. From the mid-18th century, Bolzano was well on the way to establishing itself as a tourist destination in its own right, as opposed to a place for merchants to come and trade or for people to pass through on their journeys north and south.
In 1759, the Hotel Kaiserkrone, the first representative hotel for wealthy guests, was opened; before then, numerous inns and guesthouses had catered to the merchants, pilgrims and travellers passing through. (A survey of the town from the 1540s suggests that every other building was catering in some way to the town’s guests.) A few weeks after the Kaiserkrone opened, the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II paid a visit. Other notable visitors over the years include Pope Pius VI, Francis II (another Holy Roman Emperor), and the Austrian Kaiser Franz Josef I. Today, the hotel no longer exists but an upmarket restaurant located in the same building carries the name on.
While Bolzano is not necessarily well known for its famous inhabitants or visitors, a number of recognisable names passed through during the 1700s. Here are a few of them…
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Perhaps the most famous visitor to the city, in 1786 Goethe came and spent the night in the Hotel Sonnenwirt; four years later he would return on his way back from his travels in Italy He was a big celebrity at the time and was traveling under a pseudonym: Philipp Möller.
He arrived during one of Bolzano’s trade fairs that took place four times a year. In his Italian Travels he writes:
“I came to Botzen (sic) in the bright sunshine. A good assemblage of mercantile faces pleased me much. In the square (Obstmarkt) some fruit-women were sitting with round flat baskets … in which peaches were arranged side by side, so as to avoid pressure.”
He also notes a roaring trade in silk, cloths and leather. Speaking to the city’s role as a regional banking centre, he writes: “Several merchants … came chiefly for the sake of depositing their money, taking orders and opening new credits”, rather than buying or selling anything directly.
The Hotel Sonnenwirt no longer exists, and only a plaque commemorates its former location on the Obstmarkt. Although he only spent a couple of nights here, a nearby street was renamed Goethestraße in 1901, likely as part of the city asserting itself as German-speaking in the face of increasing calls in Italy for the takeover of South Tyrol to control the strategically important mountain passes.
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Okay, Mozart might technically be more famous than Goethe, but his effect on the city was less profound, and less is known about his visit. Wolfgang and his father passed through the city a couple of times during their travels in Italy, most notably in October 1772. According to a note written to his sister, young Wolfgang wasn’t impressed by the city and found it boring and “a pigsty”. He claimed he was “inflamed” at having to spend the night in Bolzano – they had been caught in a rainstorm and forced to stop for the night rather than travelling on to Trento – and wrote the following cheeky poem:
“soll ich noch komen nach botzen /
so schlag ich mich lieber in d’fozen.”
(Lit.: If I should come back to Bolzano, I’d rather beat myself in the private parts)
He spent his time largely indoors composing music that would become one of his Milanese Quartets (No. 2 in D major; K. 155 for the fans) – although it has been refuted that he actually wrote anything in the city.
- Giacomo Casanova
After his dramatic escape from the Piombi prison in Venice in 1756, the famous Venetian traveller and libertine travelled to Bolzano and stayed for a few days at the Hotel Sonnenwirt.
In his autobiography Casanova writes: “I went to Trento, and from there to Bolzano where, finding myself almost completely out of money, while I needed a lot to get dressed and to buy linen and to get by, I introduced myself to an old banker called Mench, who put at my disposal a trusted man that I sent to Venice … The shopkeeper Mench recommended me a good hotel, where I spent, without moving from the bed, the six days that the messenger took between round trip. He returned with a letter of exchange of a hundred zecchini”.
A letter from the archive of the Mercantile Museum suggests that Casanova remained in debt to “Mench”, actually Georg Paul von Menz, head of Bolzano’s most wealthy merchant family at the time. The letter is from von Menz to Casanova begging him to repay his debts, though we do not know the outcome…
Sources
Casanova, G. (1966). History of My Life. Translated by Trask, W. R.. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World
Goethe, J. W. (1816). Italienische Reise.
Seifert, W.-D. (2021). ‘“Bozen this pigsty”. Why there’s no “Bozen string quartet” by Mozart.’ https://blog.henle.de/en/2021/02/02/bozen-this-pigsty/
Letter from Leopold Mozart to his wife, Salzburg, 1772. https://dme.mozarteum.at/DME/objs/raradocs/transcr/pdf_eng/0264_LM_WAM_Frau_1772.pdf
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