Documents and books by two key Nietzsche researchers are on display, illustrating the phenomenal impact of Nietzsche’s works on the 20^th century. Oscar Levy was the editor of the first English edition of Nietzsche’s works, and the Italian German scholar Mazzino Montinari was the first editor of what is today considered the standard critical Nietzsche edition.

Both Nietzsche researchers had strong ties to the Nietzsche House in Sils Maria. Levy through the Rosenthal-Levy family, who made many gifts to the house. Montinari was a regular guest in Sils Maria and at the Nietzsche House.

The third exhibition space contains Oscar Levy’s library, though the library itself is not open to the public. One display case holds Nietzsche’s original manuscripts and first editions. The displayed items will be regularly replaced by other museum holdings and are part of the comprehensive Rosenthal collection, which the family donated to the Nietzsche House.

The upstairs room in the Durisch house, which Nietzsche rented for seven summers (1881 and 1883-1888), has been kept in its original, simple condition. The furnishings are from Sils’ oldest hotel ‘Alpenrose’, where the philosopher often had lunch.
To the left of the window, you can see a piece of wallpaper with a pattern that Nietzsche selected and paid for himself in the summer of 1883. It is no coincidence that both the tablecloth and the wallpaper are in shades of green. In this case, too, the philosopher himself chose the fabric. Nietzsche devoted much attention to the “things that surround us” which determine our day-to-day life, as he knew how they directly affected body and spirit.
The philosophy professor Paul Deussen, who visited Nietzsche in Sils Maria in September 1887, described his friend’s room in his memoirs: “The next day, he led me to his lodgings, or, as he said, into his cave. It was a simple room in a farmhouse, three minutes from the road: Nietzsche rented it during the season for one franc per day. The décor was as simple as one could imagine. On the side stood his books which I mostly still remembered from earlier times; then came a peasant-style table with a coffee cup, eggshells, manuscripts and toilet requisites in a colorful jumble extending to the unmade bed, via a boot j-jack with a boot jammed on it.”

“Worlds of light – in manuscripts by Friedrich Nietzsche and paintings by Engadin artists” – Special exhibition as part of the joint project “Splendur e sumbriva – light and shadow in Engadin” organised by the association Chesas da cultura Engiadina.

Light is a lifelong theme of Friedrich Nietzsche. He both sought and feared it. His sensitivity to weather and light conditions determined his choice of where to reside. The longing for cloudlessness was a driving force for the headache-ridden philosopher. At the same time, the tireless wanderer was relegated to shady walks due to his extremely light-sensitive eyes.

Nietzsche’s philosophy also unfolded from the tension between the fullness of light and the play of shadows. Nietzsche’s preferred landscapes corresponded to the transitory nature of his thinking. They were centered on the pass landscapes of the Upper Engadine. Here he perceived the iridescent interplay of color and reflections, here his thinking is translated into the most diverse images of LIGHT: a dialog with his own shadow, a marriage of day and night, – all the way to the solitude of the Sun for him who is surrounded by the light.

Besides a selection of Nietzsche’s poems and letters on the subject, the exhibition features the works of key Engadine artists: Hannes Gruber, Jacques Guidon, Constant Könz, Ursina Vinzens.