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Shortly before the discovery of the universality of the Oedipus complex, Freud was travelling alone through Italy in search of strong aesthetic experiences. In September 1897, he visited Orvieto, where he first entered an Etruscan tomb (which would later reappear in his dreams and works as a lasting symbol of death) and later the Cathedral, where he was shocked by the impressive frescoes by the Renaissance painter Luca Signorelli. The magnificence of the moment was, however, spoiled by something - probably the omen that he would die before he could fulfil his wish to visit Rome. On December 3 1897, in the midst of his self-analysis, he wrote to Wilhelm Fliess that his longing for Rome was “deeply neurotic”.
One year later, once again journeying alone, he wanted to convince a fellow traveller that Orvieto was a place not to be missed. However, he could not recall the name of the author of the magnificent frescoes in spite of the vividness of the scenes in his memory. The disappointment was again compensated by an intellectual achievement: in a few days, he wrote his first essay on “Freudian slip”, On psychic mechanism of forgetfulness (1898), which would later become the first chapter of the Psychopathology of everyday life . During this period, he made several trips to Italy with the aim of reaching Rome, but he never succeeded. This “Rome phobia” became the comprehensive symbol for the most intimate goals he was forbidden to achieve and a focal point in his self-analysis. Finally, in 1901, on his sixth Italian journey, he overcame the phobia. As if sensing the absurdity of his neurosis, he wrote to his wife: “at noon, opposite the Pantheon … So this is what I have been afraid for years!”
Freud found the experience of visiting Rome “overwhelming”, as he wrote to Fliess on September 19, 1901, and a very “high point” in his life. He was so absorbed in antiquities that he “could have worshipped the abased and mutilated remnant of the Temple of Minerva”. Yet, once again,