Il vecchio Goethe, la morfologia delle piante e il disordine

This article retraces some steps of Goethe's botanical studies between the second and third decade of the nineteenth century, placing them inside of his general conception of nature and Weltanschauung. In particular, the article highlights the central role, even in these naturalistic writings, of the problem of disorder, in other respects constantly faced in Goethe's literary and philosophical itinerary (as Sandro Barbera, to whose memory the anthology in which this article appears is dedicated, showed to great effect). In this more late phase, in which Goethe is on other sides involved in the confrontation with the Romantic movement, this issue is particularly fruitful for his attempt to develop a thought of totality at the height of the tensions of modernity.