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Lot #253
Friedrich Nietzsche Autograph Letter Signed from Sorrento, Italy, During His Composition of 'Human, All Too Human'

"Va bene, patienza!"—rare Nietzsche letter from Sorrento, written as he forged a new philosophy

Estimate: $25000+

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Description

"Va bene, patienza!"—rare Nietzsche letter from Sorrento, written as he forged a new philosophy

ALS in German, signed "Friedrich Nietzsche," one page both sides, 5.25 x 8.25, no date but circa February 1877. Handwritten letter by Nietzsche from Sorrento, Villa Rubinacci, to his friend, the writer and painter Reinhart von Seydlitz in Davos, Switzerland, inviting him to join Nietzsche and Malwida von Meysenbug in Sorrento. In part (translated): "My dear good friend, nothing but a query—apart from my most cordial thanks for your letter. Are you in sufficient health to make plans for the spring? I hope and wish so with all my heart. You would still find me in Sorrento. My two friends and companions [the philosopher Paul Rée and his student Albert Brenner] will be leaving me at the end of March, and I remain with Miss von Meysenbug…My eyes are worse, my head not significantly better—thus, to employ an ancient Italian phrase (first used by a Papal nepot when the bailiffs came to lead him to his death), ‘Va bene, patienza!’—The days are of exceptional beauty; there is here a mixture of ocean, forest, and mountain climate, and numerous semi-darkened, quiet pathways. Many plans cross our minds (those of Miss v. M. and myself), and you always figure in them." In fine condition.

During his 1876–77 sojourn on the gulf of Naples, Nietzsche was working on 'Menschliches, Allzumenschliches [Human, All Too Human],' a pivotal work marking his break from the metaphysical and Wagnerian influences of his earlier thought and his turn toward Enlightenment-style skepticism and aphoristic philosophy. This period also coincided with a gradual but decisive estrangement from Richard Wagner, whose artistic and ideological direction—particularly the overt nationalism and religiosity of Parsifal—had begun to trouble Nietzsche deeply. On November 6th, Richard and Cosima Wagner abruptly quit Sorrento for Rome, marking their final personal encounter with Nietzsche and symbolizing the end of a once-intense intellectual alliance that had profoundly shaped his early career.

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