Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Goethe met Herder as a student, and visited Lavater in Switzerland ( a great correspondent, he helped Lavater with his magnum opus on physiognomy). Hummel like him was attached to the Weimar court, where Schopenhauer’s mother had a salon. Schiller approached him in admiration: they became friends and colleagues for life. Carlyle, Schelling, Schlegel, Byron, Hegel and Fichte were among intellectuals drawn across Europe to visit him (Manzoni and he just corresponded). Beethoven set several of his poems to music (though they did not get on personally), and the young Mendelssohn charmed the old man with his playing.