Who is this clumsy Coppelius? And why does the physics professor Spalanzani insist on introducing his stiff daughter Olimpia to society? E.T.A. Hoffmann's sinister night piece 'The Sandman' is an almost 200-year success story. The brilliant writer of the Romantic era drives a person to madness because he mistakes an automaton, Olimpia, for a human: a perversion of the Enlightenment that crossed the red line with the concept of the 'human as machine.' E.T.A. Hoffmann did not reveal all the secrets of the "Sandman." However, the Italian painter Andrea Grosso Ciponte brings them to light.