Aigner Park
The Aigner Park is located at the foot of the Gaisberg in Salzburg district of Aigen next castle and church Aigen. It is a listed building and was declared a protected part of the landscape in 1980 . The park with its paths, viewpoints, grottos and waterfalls is an important monument of garden art of the early 19th century.
history
Aigen Castle is mentioned as early as 1402 as the property of the cathedral chapter. The curative bitter spring in what would later become Aigner Park was praised for the first time in 1524 in a pamphlet by the archducal physician. Under Prince Archbishop Max Gandolf Kuenburg , an inn was built by Johann Josef Kuenburg, a cousin of the Archbishop in 1680. The version of the source, which had increasingly lost its Epsom salt content over the centuries, was hit and buried by an American aerial bomb in 1944.
As the new owner, the secretary of Johann Josef Kuenburg, Franz Josef Waldherr, built a first park away from the small baroque garden after 1727. Basil Optatus von Amann had the baths and the park significantly expanded and decorated with sculptures, "altars" and a "hermit hermitage" to decorate a “grave mound”, a “farmhouse”, as well as with flower beds and artificial ruins. The economic success of the redesign fell far short of expectations, and Amann had to sell Aigen Palace and Park.
The art-loving Canon Ernst Fürst Schwarzenberg had the park significantly expanded and redesigned in 1804. Grottoes were made accessible, gorges and waterfalls opened up with an artful network of paths, in which small groves and the diverse wooded slope of the Gaisberg including the associated secret meadow islands were included. Lookout points of the old city of Salzburg and the Alpine panorama were also created. Aigen Castle and its outbuildings were also the starting point for popular hikes on the Gaisberg peaks . Shortly thereafter, the park became internationally famous. The painter Ferdinand Runk and the art gardener Sebastian Rosenegger worked as garden designers .
Remnants of the simple design are still well preserved: the historical network of paths, the Lower Grotto and the Upper Grotto (Gilowsky Cave), the marble fountain surround of the Bitter Spring, the pantheistic pulpit as well as the Jäger level with the Jägerhöhe and, last but not least, the stone lock bridge, which together with wanted to explain the life of the simple population of the Eastern Alps at that time to other showpieces. First the park was restored and carefully designed around 1970 on the initiative of Eberhard Stüber by the Austrian Youth for Nature Conservation . In the years 2016 to 2018, paths and the lock bridge were most recently restored or renewed, the views were cut free according to the historical specifications, landscape-appropriate signposts were attached, 16 historical locations are briefly explained on boards (honorary management Reinhard Medicus). Historical graphics on panels also illustrate the once important gardens.
The individual "Aigner Park scenes" then and now
Texts taken from the display boards of the city of Salzburg (designed by R. Medicus):
- The Friendship Mountain - Before 1780, a circular path was elaborately designed on the back of the Friendship Mountain with ornamental trees and shrubs, Etrurian vases, Egyptian urns, Chinese turrets, obelisks and also with an altar of friendship, which gave the small mountain its name.
- The Badquell-Platz with the former bitter spring: Already in 1524 and again in 1787, printed publications praised the healing power of the bitter spring in Aigen. The spring water here gradually leached rocks containing Epsom salts. Especially in the 19th century, spa treatments with the medicinal water were very popular.
- Galerieplatz - The square offers an idyllic view of the Friendship Mountain. A neat fruit tree avenue once led from the palace garden across the meadow to the Bitter Spring. Behind it there was a clear view of Leopoldskron Castle and the mountain range of the Staufen Mountains up to the Hohen Göll.
- Four castles view - the view here goes from Neuhaus Castle over the pilgrimage basilica Maria Plain , Franziskischlössl to the Hohensalzburg Fortress . The nearby Aigen Castle is also visible.
- Lower Grotto - The naturally created cave was probably only artificially expanded shortly after 1800, adorned with two columns and closed with an iron gate. Presumably, the cave with its waterfall was already a meeting place for the Salzburg Illuminati Lodge Apollo in the late 18th century .
- Schleusenbrücke - The brook could be dammed at the brick bridge. An artificial surge of water was used to show how the woodworkers brought logs down to the valley. To the north of the bridge, a reed hut with a small garden served as a resting place.
- Fürstin Anna Sitz - The seat is reminiscent of the enlightened Princess Maria Anna Schwarzenberg (1768–1848), a close relative of the Aigner castle lords, who also erected a memorial to Adalbert Stifter in the "late summer". The nearby waterfall is easy to experience from here.
- Felsenplatz - The large collapsed boulder consists of conglomerate, a scree solidified by limestone that was formed during the alpine mountain formation 90 million years ago (Upper Cretaceous). Because of the colorful rubble, this stone is cut and polished and used as an ornamental stone.
- Gilowsky cave (fox hole) - The upper grotto was created naturally by landslides in the northeast of the Aigner Park. In 1787, Hofrat Joseph Ernst Gilowsky von Urasowa made it accessible on behalf of the lord of the palace, Basil von Aman.
- Jägerebene with Jägerhöhe - Surrounded by a light grove, there was once a secluded , elongated forest meadow with a small "Koehlerhütte", which showed the simple life of the forest workers. The Jägerhöhe - the highest point in the park - provides a view of a wide alpine panorama.
- Pulpit (Predigtstuhl) - With the view of the Aigner Valley and the wide Alpine panorama from the Untersberg to the Tennengebirge, the landscape here preaches, as it were, of the wonders of creation. The pulpit was a very popular motif by Romantic painters in the 19th century.
- Belvedere vantage point and Schlösschen - The Belvedereplatz with its small “Alpine hut” and the small castle - in “real English style” with a viewing pulpit in the attic - were other popular vantage points. The castle was later converted into a residential building.
- Former bath house and bath guest house - at first the bath tubs with the healing water of the bitter spring were located on the next floor of the castle. Before 1800 they moved here to the bath house. In 1830 a bath guest house was built next to it. Only remains of the foundations of both buildings have survived.
- Watzmannblick - The Watzmann on the Königssee - with the highest Eastern Alpine wall - impressed not only painters like Ludwig Richter and Caspar David Friedrich as well as mountaineers in the 19th century . The legend of King Watze, who turned to rock after he had a shepherd family killed by his dogs, was well known.
- Brunnenhain and former Neuhausplatz - Here, at the gently tapering foot of the Gaisberg, not far from the murmuring Mahbach, there was a spring fountain in the middle of a flowery wet meadow and next to it a small, idyllic bark house.
- Gols Bergl with the former city view - The hill was also named Wolfegg Bergl after a previous owner of the mountain, Canon Anton Willibald Wolfegg-Waldsee (* 1729; † 1821). "Gols" is a Latin heritage and comes from collis = hill.
literature
- Ernst Ziegeleder (editor): Aigen Nature Park, series of publications by the Salzburg City Association, issue 5, Salzburg, 1975
- Inge Maria Harlander: The park at Aigen; Dissertation at the University of Salzburg, 2003
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 31 ′ 31 ″ N , 14 ° 8 ′ 32 ″ E