Villa Monrepos (Geisenheim)
The Villa Monrepos is a villa built in 1861 by Heinrich Eduard von Lade with the surrounding park.
location
The Villa Monrepos is located on Rüdesheimer Strasse in Geisenheim near the banks of the Rhine. At the time of the villa construction, Rüdesheimer Strasse was the country road that connected Geisenheim to the nearby Rüdesheim.
history
The Villa Monrepos and the associated park were built between 1860 and 1863 on behalf of Eduard von Lade. Von Lade came from a Geisenheim family and had become so wealthy through his banking and arms business that he was able to retire at the age of 44. The Villa Monrepos was to serve as his home in his hometown after he had been abroad for a long period of time. Here he wanted to pursue his diverse interests, which in addition to fruit growing, horticulture and viticulture also included astronomy.
House
The white villa was built in the style of a classicist country house between 1860 and 1863. It consists of a semi-detached house, which is connected by a lower transverse structure with a semicircular, column-supported porch.
In 1866 von Lade had an observatory built on the central building of the villa , in which he carried out studies on moon mapping ( selenography ). The observatory was badly damaged by bombs towards the end of the Second World War and was finally removed after the war. The telescope, manufactured by Reinfelder & Hertel in 1887 with an aperture of 215 mm and a focal length of 2.5 m, was saved and was taken to the Wiesbaden observatory after the war. It has been at the Remscheid Observatory since 1965 and is still in operation today.
Park
The park originally covered an area of around 6 hectares. It was decorated with numerous marble statues. To the south of the villa was a garden ground floor with flower beds.
Rosarium
To the south-east of Villa Monrepos, Ark had had a splendid rosarium built. It was laid out on an area of about 12 acres that had previously been used for growing vegetables. It was bounded to the north and west by walls on which peach and wine espaliers were cultivated. A free rose trellis stood to the east. As the area sloped towards the south towards the banks of the Rhine, a retaining wall was built here so that the rosarium could be laid out on a level surface.
In the center of the rosarium there was a large round bed with a diameter of about eight meters, which was planted with tea roses and in the middle of which was a marble statue of a bacchante . The rosarium was cut through by four straight and right-angled paths, each lined with high rose stems, with two stems of the same variety facing each other. Four borders were arranged concentrically around the central bed, which were divided into beds by the main paths. The beds of a concentric ring were each with roses a Rose class with plants, whereby the planting was chosen so that the roses grew in each case up to the edge of the plant than in its interior.
The Monrepos Park Rosarium contained more than 3000 rose bushes of 800 different rose varieties. It was not only used for the collection of rose varieties, but also for testing rose varieties. It was always open to interested visitors, who von Lade willingly guided through the facility.
Orchard
Fruit growing and viticulture were particularly important to Eduard von Lade. For this reason, von Lade had a very extensive orchard planted on the property belonging to Villa Monrepos. The transitions between the park and the kitchen garden were fluid.
When planting the orchard, he orientated himself on the French espalier fruit growing and was advised by leading fruit growing scientists and pomologists like Eduard Lucas, Johann Georg Conrad Oberdieck, Alexis Lepere and Charles Baltet. From 1869 he transferred the management of the pomological gardens of Monrepos to Hermann Goethe .
In the orchard, von Lade cultivated a very large number of different types of fruit, which were raised as espalier trees, sometimes in very skilful formations. Although he had collected a large number of types of fruit, he was very careful about selection and selection by not cultivating any further varieties that did not do well in the climate. Several hundred types of pear were initially planted in the garden, which von Lade reduced over time through strict selection to the still considerable number of one hundred varieties, which were cultivated on almost 2000 trees in various growth forms.
Von Lade also worked as a breeder of new types of fruit. He caused a sensation with the cherry cultivation of Lades late cartilage cherry , the fruits of which did not ripen until October. Further of his breeds are the fruit varieties Von Lades Späte Mirabelle , Green Plum from Monrepos and Red Plum from Monrepos . Von Lades Butterbirne was named after him .
Part of the fruit harvest was intended for sale, the rest was used to supply the household of Villa Monrepos.
Establishment of the Royal Prussian Institute for Fruit Growing and Viticulture
The successes that von Lade achieved in the cultivation of fruit in a climatically preferred location prompted him to work with the Prussian King Wilhelm I and Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to establish a pomological school with a model garden in Geisenheim. In order to support his request, he sent eleven boxes with selected pears, apples, peaches and grapes to the king in Berlin in October 1866. Thereupon von Lade was given the opportunity to present his plans to the King and Bismarck personally in a lecture in Berlin. Although in December 1867 the city of Kronberg im Taunus also applied for the location of the newly founded Pomological Institute, a state commission in February 1868 decided in favor of the Geisenheim location proposed by Lade. After long preliminary planning and structural work, the Royal Prussian Institute for Fruit and Wine Growing was founded in Geisenheim by decree in 1872, from which the research institute for gardening and viticulture in Geisenheim, which still exists today, emerged . The newly founded institution was in the immediate vicinity of von Lade's villa and his park.
Von Lade initially had a seat on the institute's board of trustees, but after lengthy friction with the institute's teachers and other members of the board of trustees, he withdrew from managing the institute in 1880. Von Lade, whose three children and wife had died early, had contributed his fortune, including his Monrepos estate, to the Freiherr-Eduard-von Lade Foundation he had founded. After his death on August 7, 1904, he bequeathed the foundation to the Prussian state in a will. In 1907 he made the building and the facilities accessible to the Royal College, which acted as the administrator of the estate. In 1908 a museum for viticulture, fruit growing and horticulture was opened in Villa Monrepos in order to make von Lade's extensive collections accessible to teaching.
After the foundation's assets were significantly reduced by the First World War and the subsequent inflation, the foundation was no longer able to support itself. Therefore, on March 14, 1929, the Freiherr von Lade Foundation was dissolved. The Villa Monrepos, along with the gardens and parks, became the property of the educational institution.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl Koch: Villa Monrepos near Geisenheim. In: Weekly of the association for the promotion of horticulture in the royal Prussian states for horticulture and botany. 10th year, Berlin 1867, pp. 345–347
- ↑ a b c d The gardens of Monrepos near Geisenheim. In: Ludwig von Ompteda: Rhenish gardens from the Moselle to Lake Constance: pictures from old and new gardening. Paul Parey Publishing House, Berlin 1886, pp. 37-59
- ↑ a b c d L. Cavet: The rose garden in Monrepos near Geisenheim. - Property of Mr. Eduard von Lade, the president of the Association of German Rose Friends. In: Rosen-Zeitung. Volume 1, Issue 3, Association of German Rose Friends, Baden-Baden 1886, pp. 35–37
- ^ A b Friedrich Lucas: Visit to Villa Monrepos near Geisenheim. In: Pomological monthly books - Allgemeine Deutsche Obstbauzeitung. 38th year, published by Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1892, pp. 10-11
- ↑ Paul Claus: On the story - the establishment of the establishment. In: Geisenheim 1872–1972. 100 years of research and teaching in viticulture, fruit growing and horticulture. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1972, p. 14f
- ↑ Paul Claus: On the story - the establishment of the establishment. In: Geisenheim 1872–1972. 100 years of research and teaching in viticulture, fruit growing and horticulture. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1972, p. 24
- ↑ Paul Claus: On the story - the establishment of the establishment. In: Geisenheim 1872–1972. 100 years of research and teaching in viticulture, fruit growing and horticulture. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1972, p. 12
Coordinates: 49 ° 58 ′ 54 ″ N , 7 ° 57 ′ 31.2 ″ E