the news of the bizarre crime spread in learned europe and made a huge impression (johann wolfgang von goethe, for example, always remembered when and where he received the news of winckelmann's death). winckelmann's assassination became object of many speculations and narratives in private correspondences and discourses as well as in forensic reports, articles and public speeches. prof. lionel gossman, for example, believes that there are reminiscences of winckelmann's murder, whether conscius or not, in thomas mann's "death in venice" (1913).