Three years after the death of Beethoven, a 21-year-old Jewish composer from Berlin

set out for Italy. What he saw when he got there awed and amazed him. Here beyond

the mountains was another world, a landscape filled with sunlight and drama and

dotted with the ruins of the ancient Roman Empire. Here was the glorious source of so

many centuries of artistic inspiration, “the land where the lemon-tree blooms, where

the golden orange glows.” This was where European civilization had begun!

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