Abstract
Italy is the location of part of the action in Jean Paul’s novel Titan. Since the author had never visited Italy his description of the country is based on the detailed information provided by contemporary travel accounts. With selected examples it can be shown how Jean Paul was able to transform the matter-of-fact character of his sources into sensitive poetic descriptions of Italian cities and land- scapes, to integrate them into the plot and to describe their influence on the hero of the novel.