Franziska Sibylla Augusta of Saxony-Lauenburg

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Franziska Sibylla Augusta of Saxony-Lauenburg

Franziska Sibylla Augusta von Sachsen-Lauenburg (born January 21, 1675 in Ratzeburg , † July 10, 1733 in Ettlingen ) was the wife of Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm of Baden-Baden ("Türkenlouis") and after his death from 1707 to 1727 regent of the margraviate Baden-Baden . She was the builder of Favorite Castle in Rastatt , the Ettlinger Castle and the castle church of Rastatt Castle .

Life

Early years

Franziska Sibylla Augusta of Saxony-Lauenburg

Franziska Sibylla Augusta was born in 1675 as the second daughter of Duke Julius Franz von Sachsen-Lauenburg and Countess Palatine Hedwig von Sulzbach in Ratzeburg Castle .

In 1676 the family moved to Schlackenwerth Castle in Bohemia, where Sibylla Augusta spent her youth . After her mother's death on November 23, 1681, she and her sister Anna Maria Franziska von Sachsen-Lauenburg were raised by Countess Polixena von Werschowitz . Her training followed court etiquette in conversation, painting and music. Neither the relationship with the three years older sister nor with the countess was the best, as Werschowitz preferred the older sister. Sibylla's grandfather, Count Palatine Christian August von Sulzbach , taught her writing, reading, French, geography and history. The school of the Piarists , which she attended regularly and which she later repeatedly praised, was also formative.

Eight years after the mother, on September 30, 1689, the father died, who during his life could not do much with his daughters and who always mourned his first-born hereditary prince who died early. Two other sisters had also died in early childhood.

In court circles it was speculated that Father Julius Franz had been poisoned. Countess Polixena von Werschowitz, who was obviously after the fortune, was suspected. However, no evidence of a murder plot could be found. Besides: Five days before his death, the father had the daughters in his will under the protection of the emperor asked, so the Countess went out empty. In the absence of a male heir and endowed with considerable wealth, the two daughters were a good marriage match. Then the emperor sequestered (confiscated) the land, even though female succession had already been introduced in Saxony-Lauenburg. He left the daughters only their Bohemian possessions. Sibylla Augusta and Anna Maria had to move to Schloss Reichstadt to live with an aunt by marriage, the Duchess Lobkowitz-Sagan .

Marriage to Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm

German School - Sibilla Augusta of Baden.png

This will came in very handy for Emperor Leopold I , as he had two highly deserved princes in his service, whom he still had to reward fairly. Consequently, he divided the inheritance between the two daughters. He wanted to marry the elder to his general Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm and the younger to his cousin Prince Eugene . The margrave relied on this rich marriage as his property had been destroyed by the French while he was in the field for the emperor and the rebuilding cost a lot of money.

Alliance coat of arms of Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden and his wife Franziska Sibylla Augusta von Sachsen-Lauenburg

As a result, Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm traveled to Bohemia for a bride show . When he arrived there on January 10, 1690, the 34-year-old margrave fell in love with the younger, not yet 15-year-old Franziska Sibylla Augusta, contrary to the plans of the emperor. The engagement was quickly concluded, just four days later, on January 14, 1690. The marriage followed on March 27, 1690 at Raudnitz Castle . Since the ancestral seat of the margrave in Baden-Baden was destroyed by the French, the newly wed couple initially stayed in Schlackenwerth . Only in 1693 did Franziska Sibylla Augusta get to know her future home in Baden .

The sister Anna Maria Franziska was extremely angry about this neglect and refused to marry Prince Eugene, since he was not a ruling prince . She married Prince Wilhelm of Pfalz-Neuburg on October 29, 1690 and after long disputes about inheritance, she left Schlackenwerth forever. Since the prince died in 1693, she married a Medici in 1697 , the Grand Duke of Tuscany , Gian Gastone de 'Medici .

Shortly after his marriage to Franziska Sibylla Augusta, however, Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm had to go back to war against the Ottomans . In 1691 he achieved his greatest triumph in the Battle of Slankamen . The correspondence between the young Franziska Sibylla Augusta and Ludwig Wilhelm has been lost, but Franziska Sibylla Augusta had a close relationship with her grandfather, the Count Palatine Christian August von Sulzbach. The great love and admiration of Franziska Sibylla can be read from this correspondence.

In the first few years she was separated from her husband a lot and had a lot of time for her interests. But she soon began to take care of the administration of her property, an experience from which she later drew much benefit. 1692 she was in court for a visit, but court life did not like her and she decided then on the court to stay away. She wanted to stand by her husband in the future and moved with him from camp to camp, but this was very bad for her health.

children

Franziska Sibylla Augusta had little luck with her children and suffered many strokes of fate. The first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, the first child lived six months, the second four years, the third six years and the fourth three years. The fifth died after four months. In all, there were nine children that emerged from the marriage, of which only three reached the age of ten, a daughter and two sons. The daughter died in childbed at the age of 22 , the sons were 59 and 65 years old.

  • Miscarriage († between 1690 and 1695)
  • Leopold Wilhelm (born November 28, 1695 in Günzburg; † May 19, 1696 there), Hereditary Prince of Baden-Baden
  • Charlotte (* August 7, 1696 in Günzburg; † January 16, 1700 there (?))
  • Karl Joseph (born September 30, 1697 in Augsburg; † March 9, 1703 in Schlackenwerth), Hereditary Prince of Baden-Baden
  • Wilhelmine (born August 14, 1700 in Nuremberg; † May 16, 1702 in Schlackenwerth)
  • Luise (* May 8, 1701 in Nuremberg; † September 23, 1707)
  • Ludwig Georg Simpert (1702–1761), Margrave of Baden-Baden
  • Wilhelm Georg Simpert (born September 5, 1703 in Aschaffenburg; † February 16, 1709 in Baden-Baden)
  • Augusta Marie Johanna (1704–1726) ⚭ July 13, 1724 Ludwig, Duke of Orléans (1703–1752)
  • August Georg Simpert (1706–1771), Margrave of Baden-Baden

When the five-year-old son Karl Joseph died in 1703, Franziska Sibylla Augusta made a pilgrimage to Maria Einsiedeln for the first time . Seven more pilgrimages followed.

The later Margrave Ludwig Georg Simpert caused her a lot of worries during his childhood, he seemed backward and only began to speak at the age of six after a pilgrimage to Maria Einsiedeln. On June 8, 1702, he was baptized in the open air in front of the Martinskirche in Ettlingen, which was burned down by the French . At the age of 25, he took over the Margraviate of Baden as regent in 1727 .

When the new Rastatt Palace was ready for occupancy in 1705 , Franziska Sibylla Augusta and the children were finally able to move in, but the margrave died in January 1707.

Regent of the Margraviate of Baden

Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm died on January 4, 1707 as a result of a war wound. Since the children were still too young, Franziska Sibylla Augusta took over the reign.

With a skillful hand in marriage policy, a watchful eye on finances and reform of the administration, she gained respect and recognition among the population. Their building policies created jobs, but the people were poor. So she took on debts on her Bohemian estates in order to alleviate the greatest poverty. Whenever possible, she went on pilgrimages to receive spiritual support in addition to secular advisers such as Duke Leopold of Lorraine and Elector Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz .

Above all, the children and the danger of the French invading again worried her. In 1707 she wrote a letter of appeal to the emperor to keep his promise to the deceased margrave to look after the children in the event of his death, but the emperor only advised Franziska Sibylla Augusta to return to Bohemia. A few quiet years followed, during which Franziska Sibylla Augusta undertook a lively construction activity and developed her artistic skills. Her plan to build a castle in nearby Niederbühl was threatened again by the French and she fled to Ettlingen . But in November 1713 there was peace. Prince Eugene negotiated the peace treaty with Marshal Villars in Rastatt Castle , while Franziska Sibylla Augusta was in Ettlingen. In 1714 the Peace of Rastatt was concluded, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession . Out of gratitude, she built the Einsiedeln chapel in Rastatt.

Franziska Sibylla Augusta

Last years

In 1727 she handed over government affairs to her son Margrave Ludwig Georg Simpert and retired to her widow's residence in Ettlingen Castle . In October 1727 the margravine went on her seventh pilgrimage to Maria Einsiedeln, before devoting herself to the expansion of the Ettlinger Schloss for the next few years until her death. In June 1730 she made her last, eighth pilgrimage to Maria Einsiedeln. Under the influence of Cardinal Damian Hugo Philipp von Schönborn-Buchheim , the Prince-Bishop of Speyer, she led a strictly religious lifestyle and entered various monasteries and orders.

Franziska Sibylla Augusta died on July 10, 1733 at the age of 58 in Ettlingen and was buried on July 12, 1733 in the Rastatt Castle Church. At the entrance of the church there is a grave slab embedded in the floor with the inscription: + BED FOR THE GREAT SINNER AUGUSTA MDCCXXXIII .

Construction activity

Franziska Sibylla Augusta worked as a builder early on. In Schlackenwerth, together with Ludwig Wilhelm, she built the White Palace , which was completed in 1697, in 1691 . This was a three-winged complex based on Viennese and Prague models, which was located in the middle of a park and adapted to Bohemian conditions. The builder was Johann Michael Sock .

In 1709 she had a chapel built in Schlackenwerth based on the model of the Maria Einsiedeln chapel in Switzerland . Another copy of this chapel was made in Rastatt in 1715 as thanks for the end of the War of the Spanish Succession and the peace treaty of 1714 in the Peace of Rastatt .

Rastatt Palace was built in Rastatt, probably still largely influenced by Ludwig Wilhelm, but after his death the margravine replaced the court architect Domenico Egidio Rossi with Johann Michael Ludwig Rohrer from Bohemia and appointed him court architect .

As a result, a number of buildings were built, including:

In the Favorite Palace in Rastatt is today porcelain collection of Countess issued. The castle is also used for concerts.

  • Rastatt Pagodenburg

  • Rastatt Castle

  • Favorite Castle

  • Einsiedeln chapel Rastatt

literature

  • Otto Flake : Türkenlouis. Painting of a time . 2nd Edition. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-596-25788-3 .
  • Saskia Esser : Life and Work of Margravine Franziska Sibylla Augusta . Exhibition catalog, Stadt Rastatt, Rastatt 1983, ISBN 3-923082-01-0 .
  • Clemens Jöckle : Maria Einsiedeln Chapel Rastatt . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1999, ISBN 3-7954-5971-0
  • Hans-Georg Kaack : Margravine Sibylla Augusta. The great princess of Baden during the baroque period . Stadler, Konstanz 1983, ISBN 3-7977-0097-0 .
  • Anna Maria Renner : Sybilla Augusta. Margravine of Baden. The story of a memorable life . 4th edition. Müller, Karlsruhe 1981, ISBN 3-7880-9665-9 .
  • Susan Richter : And honor you in this heroes = women - Margravine Sibylla Augusta von Baden-Baden in the mirror of piaristic court panegyric , in: Hans Heid (Ed.): The Rastatt Residence in the mirror of the holdings of the historical library. Book accompanying the exhibition “300 Years of Rastatt Residence”. Rastatt 2007, pp. 295-304.
  • Gerlinde Vetter : Between glamor and piety. The court of the margravine Sibylla Augusta of Baden . Katz, Gernsbach 2006, ISBN 3-938047-19-4 .
  • Rudolf Sillib : Castle Favorite and the hermitage of the Margravine Franziska Sibylla Augusta of Baden-Baden. New Year's Sheets of the Baden Historical Commission, New Series 17. Carl Winters University Bookstore, Heidelberg 1914.
  • Johann Christian Sachs : Introduction to the history of the Marggravschaft and the Marggravial old princely house of Baden . Third part. Lotter, Carlsruhe 1769, p. 634–664 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  • Werner Schulz: [Catalog] Margravine Sibylla Augusta , [Exhibition of the Badische Landesbibliothek and the Generallandesarchiv from October 20 to November 29, 1975], Karlsruhe: Badische Landesbibliothek, 1975, 8 pp.
  • Uwe A. Oster: Margravine Sibylla Augusta von Baden-Baden, Die pious Sünderin May 29, 2008, in: At that time online

Web links

Commons : Franziska Sibylla Augusta von Sachsen-Lauenburg  - Collection of images
predecessor Office successor
Ludwig Wilhelm Regent of the margraviate of Baden-Baden
1707–1727 		Ludwig Georg Simpert
personal data
SURNAME Franziska Sibylla Augusta of Saxony-Lauenburg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Franziska Sibylla Augusta of Baden
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Regent of Baden-Baden
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1675
PLACE OF BIRTH Ratzeburg
DATE OF DEATH July 10, 1733
Place of death Ettlingen