Veitshöchheim Castle

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Front view
General plan of the palace and courtyard garden

The Veitshöchheim Castle is a former summer residence of the prince bishops of Würzburg , later the kings of Bavaria , in Veitshöchheim in Würzburg . The palace complex is known for the surrounding rococo garden .

Aerial view of Veitshöchheim Castle and Castle Park
Veitshöchheim Castle
Castle stairs
Balustrade with putti and vases

history

construction

The beginnings of the castle are attested on the ground floor, where from 1680–1682 a hall with five arches of the prince-bishops of Würzburg has been preserved. It served as protection after the hunt. The two-storey building today still bears the four bay risalits of the older building. The architect Antonio Petrini and certainly the foreman Heinrich Zimmer were probably involved in the construction. Later, two window axes and a representative upper floor were added, which were bordered by four corner turrets. In 1753, Balthasar Neumann gave the building its current appearance: he added pavilions to the side, vaulted the whole thing with the distinctive sweeping roof, and added a representative staircase inside.

A balustrade decorated with vases and groups of putti by Johann Peter Wagner runs around the entire palace .

All floors come from the baroque period; Parts of the baroque interior decorating a wing of the upper floor have also been preserved: a dining room with game tables, a billiard room, a study, a living room, and a bedroom with a retreat that was later furnished. The original stucco by Antonio Giuseppe Bossi is still in all rooms . Most of the silk wall coverings were reconstructed in Lyon according to original patterns; the original wall coverings are only hanging in the living room using the rare Ikat technique.

A chapel has been set up in the stairwell. The stucco altar decorated with fantastic color transitions was also created by Antonio Bossi. A convertible prayer chair has been preserved. The original wallpaper made of goatskin with embossed printing and gold ornaments was outsourced to protect against moisture. There is also a small kitchen there, which was intended for serving the dishes.

From the bedrooms on both sides you can get into a valet room and further on to small outside balconies that lead around the living rooms back into the stairwell.

use

From 1806 to 1814 the palace was the summer residence of Grand Duke Ferdinand III. of Tuscany , Elector and Grand Duke of Würzburg. He had some rooms furnished in the contemporary Empire style. Five of them are now shown on the upper floor in their original furnishings: an anteroom with adjoining study, a living room with a rare flower stand, a bedroom and a tower room. The old printed paper wallpapers with detailed plant motifs are remarkable. The company Sattler from Schonungen, which produced the Schweinfurt green by adding arsenic (“poison green”), worked on this in order to increase the luminosity and durability of the color. The preserved pieces of furniture made of cherry, plum and yew wood and the oil lamps made of alabaster complete the classicist impression.

With the abolition of the Grand Duchy of Würzburg in 1814, the property passed to the Bavarian kings, who, contrary to popular opinion otherwise in the local literature, rarely used the castle . In contrast, it was a popular destination for the Würzburg people.

The Hofgarten on a postcard from the late 19th century

For this purpose, the Veitshöchheim station received an extraordinary reception building, representative, as for a seaside resort, with a royal pavilion, the latter in the axis to the castle. The reception building and the royal pavilion are connected by a walkway. The building is used by the community library.

After the First World War in 1918, the palace and garden fell to the Free State of Bavaria, which has opened the palace as a museum for visitors since 1932.

2001–2005 the castle was extensively restored and can be visited from April to October; Events are also possible there.

Courtyard garden

Castle seen from the lake in the castle garden, left in the lake the Musenberg Parnassus

Two small castles can be found in Veitshöchheim since the 16th century, with an enclosure for pheasants and probably also red deer. In 1681, Prince-Bishop Peter Philipp von Dernbach had land purchased to expand this “High Princely Thier Garden”. The core of today's castle was built in 1680/82. In 1702/03 Johann Philipp von Greiffenclau turned the pheasantry into a pleasure garden: Dernbachsche Schlösschen was prepared and converted into a summer house, it was given a ground floor , the area to the south was redesigned into a tree or bosque garden with the “Great Lake”. In 1748/49 the old Wasserschlösschen were put down and replaced by a cavalier building and other economic buildings. The heavily run-down garden was - while maintaining the planning from 1702 - "brought into proper condition" by Carl Philipp von Greiffenclau . His successor, Prince Bishop Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim , initiated the redesign of the garden in 1763 - after the end of the Seven Years' War. It has now been lavishly furnished with fountains , around 300 sandstone sculptures by the court sculptors Johann Wolfgang van der Auvera , Ferdinand Tietz and Johann Peter Wagner as well as numerous water features and is one of the few structures in the French Rococo style in Germany that are still preserved. Other elements include hedge halls, arbors , pavilions and roundabouts, as well as artificial ruins . The cave complex is comparable to that in the Boboli Gardens of the Palazzo Pitti in Florence ; it was designed by Johann Philipp Geigel and Materno Bossi .

In the 19th century, the park narrowly escaped destruction: When the Ludwigs-West-Bahn was built , the engineers identified the park's central avenue as the optimal route, where the track was to be laid. This was prevented by the veto of King Ludwig I , who ordered a route around the Hofgarten, albeit a somewhat less topographical one.

Kitchen garden Veitshöchheim

From around 1990 the Bavarian Palace Administration restored the historic kitchen garden , which contains forgotten types of fruit and vegetables as a “green archive”: old types of vegetables and salads, spices, medicinal herbs. In addition to artichokes, aubergines and melons, you will find poppy seeds, winter purslane and hyssop, as well as rare fruits such as gold parmäne , Gewürzluiken , champagne renette and yellow Bellefleur . Gardener Johann Prokop Mayer (1737-1804) had here as well in the courtyard garden of the Wurzburg Residence , shape fruit trees introduced "Boiler crowns" that are better supplied with nutrients and exposed to intense sun. Species that needed warmth such as peach, quince and pear grew in various shapes on espalier fences in front of protective walls.

literature

  • Heinrich Kreisel: The Rococo Garden at Veitshöchheim . Hirmer, Munich 1953.
  • Eckart Rüsch: The Veitshöchheim train station. A 19th century royal and tourist station . In: Yearbook for Railway History . 24 (1992) ISSN  0340-4250 , p. 23 ff.
  • Jürgen Schwitkowski: Veitshöchheim am Main. With rococo garden . Self-published, Veitshöchheim 1997. ISBN 3-923547-77-3 (illustrated book).
  • Walter Tunk, Burkard von Roda: Veitshöchheim. Castle and garden. Official guide = publications of the Bavarian Palace Administration . 9th newly designed edition. Bayerische Schlösserverwaltung, Munich 2001. ISBN 3-932982-39-8
  • Ferdinand Werner : The court garden in Veitshöchheim . Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft , Worms 1998. ISBN 3-88462-145-9

Web links

Commons : Schloss Veitshöchheim  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rüsch, p. 25
  2. ↑ Rüsch
  3. ↑ Rüsch, p. 23f

Coordinates: 49 ° 49 ′ 54 ″  N , 9 ° 52 ′ 29 ″  E