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Nietzsche’s Journey to Sorrento

Genesis of the Philosophy of the Free Spirit

“When for the first time I saw the evening rise with its red and gray softened in the Naples sky,” Nietzsche wrote, “it was like a shiver, as though pitying myself for starting my life by being old, and the tears came to me and the feeling of having been saved at the very last second.” Few would guess it from the author of such cheery works as The Birth of Tragedy, but as Paolo D’Iorio vividly recounts in this book, Nietzsche was enraptured by the warmth and sun of southern Europe. It was in Sorrento that Nietzsche finally matured as a thinker.

Nietzsche first voyaged to the south in the autumn of 1876, upon the invitation of his friend, Malwida von Meysenbug. The trip was an immediate success, reviving Nietzsche’s joyful and trusting sociability and fertilizing his creative spirit. Walking up and down the winding pathways of Sorrento and drawing on Nietzsche’s personal notebooks, D’Iorio tells the compelling story of Nietzsche’s metamorphosis beneath the Italian skies. It was here, D’Iorio shows, that Nietzsche broke intellectually with Wagner, where he decided to leave his post at Bâle, and where he drafted his first work of aphorisms, Human, All Too Human, which ushered in his mature era. A sun-soaked account of a philosopher with a notoriously overcast disposition, this book is a surprising travelogue through southern Italy and the history of philosophy alike.
 

168 pages | 34 halftones | 6 x 9 | © 2016

History: European History, History of Ideas

Philosophy: General Philosophy, History and Classic Works

Reviews

“This book is the detailed description of a metamorphosis, a break in the life and thought of Nietzsche, a ‘crisis’ from which the birth of the ‘philosophy of the free spirit’ was born.”

Libération

“Philosopher Paolo D’Iorio restores step by step, document after document, nearly word for word, the genesis (and regenesis) of the Nietzschean transformation.”

Philosophie Magazine

“An erudite book, filled with scents and colors, skillfully intertwining life and thought.”

Le Vif/L’Express

“The metamorphosis of Nietzsche presented in simple, concrete, and jargon-free terms, in every way worthy of the philosopher of the free spirit.”

Valeurs Actuelles

“Although this account of Nietzsche’s travels is confined to the time he was in Sorrento, it is valuable for tracing the philosopher’s intellectual thought. . . . D'Iorio includes many illustrations, pictures, and excerpts from Nietzsche's actual notebooks, which add authenticity to this portrait of Nietzsche as traveler, engaging friend, and philosopher. This is a pleasant, instructive read. Recommended.”
 

Choice

Table of Contents

Translator’s Preface
Introduction: Becoming a Philosopher
Chapter 1: Traveling South
A Stateless Man’s Passport
Night Train through Mont Cenis
The Camels of Pisa
Naples: First Revelation of the South
Chapter 2: “The School of Educators” at the Villa Rubinacci
Richard Wagner in Sorrento
The Monastery of Free Spirits
Dreaming of the Dead
Chapter 3: Walks on the Land of the Sirens
The Carnival of Naples
Mithras at Capri
Chapter 4: Sorrentiner Papiere
Rée-alism and the Chemical Combinations of Atoms
The Logic of Dreams
An Epicurean in Sorrento
Sacred Music on an African Background
The Sun of Knowledge and the Ground of Things
The Blessed Isles
Chapter 5: The Bells of Genoa and Nietzschean Epiphanies
Epiphanies
The Value of Human Things
Crossed Geneses
The Azure Bell of Innocence
Zarathustra’s Night Song
Epilogue to the Bell
Chapter 6: Torna a Surriento
Editions, Abbreviations, Bibliography
Works Cited
List of Figures
Index

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