Richard Wagner, Genoa

For various days I lived in real ecstasy. Unable to follow a set plan to visit the masterpieces in town, I gave myself up to the enjoyment of that new environment in what might be called a musical guise.

I have never seen anything like this Genoa! It is something indescribably beautiful, grandiose, characteristic … I really would not know how to start explaining the impression that all this has had and is continuing to have on me …

Richard Wagner in a letter to Minna Wagner, 1853.