With the exhibition Il Cielo sopra Roma: German Painters and Italian landscape, the Casa di Goethe presents some of its most precious art works, both oil paintings and drawings, some of which have never been on display before.

At the centre of the exhibition is Vista da Monte di Giustizia a Villa Montalto Negroni a Roma painted by Johann August Nahl in 1785. Another highlight is the painting Vista di Rocca di Sangallo a Civita Castellana, which was only recently attributed to Jakob Wilhelm Mechau. Most of the paintings are landscapes, featuring the cielo, or sky, above Rome.

The majority of the exhibited artists were contemporaries of Goethe, and include brothers Jakob Philipp and Johann Gottlieb Hackert, Joseph Anton Koch and Franz Kobell.