Short answers, pulled from the story.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born on the 28th of August 1749 in a large house on Großer Hirschgraben in Frankfurt. His father, Johann Caspar Goethe, had studied law in Leipzig and worked as an Imperial Councillor.
Goethe took up residence in Weimar in 1775 following the success of his first novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. He became a member of the Duke's privy council from 1776 to 1785 while sitting on the war and highway commissions and overseeing the reopening of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau.
Goethe traveled to the Italian peninsula and Sicily from 1786 to 1788 because his father had made a similar journey and his example served as a major motivating factor for the trip. During this period he encountered genuine Greek architecture for the first time and wrote that seeing Sicily was essential to truly seeing Italy.
Goethe had five children with Christiane Vulpius but only their eldest son August survived into adulthood. One child was stillborn while the others died early before reaching maturity.
Goethe died in Weimar on the 22nd of March 1832 of apparent heart failure. He is buried in the Ducal Vault at Weimar's Historical Cemetery.