Published:
The fourth volume of the family correspondence spans from March to November 1859 and documents his educational and research trip in Italy. In Naples, he attempted to develop an independent research program that would secure him an academic position and, at the same time, his marriage to Anna Sethe. After this failed, Haeckel used the summer for hiking, botanizing and drawing. On the crossing to Ischia he met the marshland poet Hermann Allmers and together they toured the ancient excavation sites as well as Capri and Sicily. From October 1859 Haeckel studied intensively the radiolarians in the Bay of Messina. These studies were to form the basis of his monograph which was awarded the Cothenius Medal of the Leopoldina in 1864.
Print Edition of the Ernst Haeckel Letters EditionExternal link