Bruchsal Palace
Bruchsal Palace, also called the Damiansburg, is a Baroque palace complex located in Bruchsal, Germany. The complex is made up of over 50 buildings. These include a three-winged residential building with an attached chapel, four pavilions separated by a road, some smaller utility buildings, and a garden. It is noted for its fine Rococo decoration and in particular its entrance staircase, which is regarded as one of the finest examples of its kind in any Baroque palace.
The palace was built in the first half of the 18th century by Damian Hugo Philipp von Schönborn, Prince-Bishop of Speyer. Schönborn drew on family connections to recruit building staff and experts in the Baroque style, most notably Balthasar Neumann. Although intended to be the permanent residence of the Prince-Bishops, they occupied it for less than a century.
On 1 March 1945, only two months before the end of the Second World War, much of the palace was destroyed in an American air raid directed against nearby railway installations. It has since been completely rebuilt in a restoration project that lasted until 1996. The interiors have been partly restored and the palace now houses two museums.
History
For much of its existence, and that of the Holy Roman Empire, the city of Speyer was both an Imperial city and the seat of a Prince-Bishopric. The two entities quarreled throughout their own existences, but especially during the Reformation. As in some other German Bishopric seats, this conflict would force the Prince-Bishop to vacate the city. The secondary residence of the Prince-Bishops was the fortress of Udenheim, purchased by Prince-Bishop in 1316. Prince-Bishop Philipp Christoph von Sötern renamed that residence to the Philippsburg and began fortifying it in 1617 following the formation of the Protestant Union. In response, and with permission from the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick V, Elector Palatinate and a force from the Palatinate, Speyer, and Württemberg destroyed Philippsburg in June 1618.During the Nine Years' War, French general Ezéchiel du Mas, Comte de Mélac attacked and destroyed the Philippsburg and then Speyer, on 1 June 1689, razing the city and the. Speyer's burghers were entirely unwilling to allow the reconstruction of ecclesiastical property and even violently prevented it in 1716. Prince-Bishop moved his seat to Bruchsal and rebuilt a family residence located there. Rollingen's coadjutor bishop and successor in 1719, Damian Hugo Philipp von Schönborn, desired to rebuild the Episcopal Palace in Speyer. Damian Hugo was refused by the city, though by then he was taken by Bruchsal's landscape and decided to build a new palace north of the town's walls. He acquired the services of Maximilian von Welsch, court architect to his uncle, Lothar Franz von Schönborn, the Elector of Mainz, who was to work on the plans for Bruchsal Palace alongside Friedrich Karl von Schönborn, Damian Hugo's brother. Welsch presented plans for Bruchsal Palace to Damian Hugo in September 1720, while he was visiting his uncle's court at Schloss Favorite. Impressed, the Prince-Bishop approved the start of construction and in 1721 recruited Johann Georg Seitz, a foreman working for another Schönborn. The palace's cornerstone was laid on the north side of the cour d'honneur in what was to be the Chamber Wing in 1722.
Construction
The Chamber Wing's foundations were finished by 1723, by which time the stables and roadside pavilions were completed. After two years of work, however, Seitz departed for his original workplace, Wiesentheid. Damian Hugo fought to keep Seitz until June of that year, when he relented and hired. Rohrer was a master mason from Rastatt, employed at the court of Sibylla Augusta of Baden-Baden, who was not only in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Speyer, but also a personal friend. Over 1724, Rohrer built the complex's orangeries and the gallery connecting the corps de logis to the Church Wing, itself completed in 1725. The Prince-Bishop moved into the Chamber Wing the next year and would remain there until the beletage was finished in 1730.The final plan for the corps de logis was only drawn up in 1725 by Rohrer and Welsch, with some input by the latter's young student, Anselm Franz von Ritter zu Groenesteyn. Over that year, Groenesteyn replaced Rohrer as the primary architect and constructed the corps de logiss first floor. Damian Hugo, however, realized that with the existing plan he would not have room for his dressing rooms nor for servants' quarters. In 1726, while Groenesteyn was absent from court, the Prince-Bishop had a mezzanine floor constructed between the designed first and second floors. This addition made Groenesteyn's plan for the staircase impossible and, when he could not devise a new plan, he resigned. He was soon followed by Rohrer, who had fallen ill and out of Damian Hugo's favor in 1727, and Antonio Gresta, charged with painting the Hofkirche's frescoes, who also grew sick in 1727 and died soon thereafter. Construction of the rest of the palace continued according to Rohrer's plans, but under the direction of an architect named Johann Georg Stahl, previously a master carpenter.
Damian Hugo complained to Lothar Franz von Schönborn of the situation. In Lothar Franz's employ was the architect Balthasar Neumann, who had just completed an expansion of Schloss Weißenstein's gardens. Damian Hugo hired Neumann as his new master architect in 1728, but he couldn't actually take charge because of the ascension of Friedrich Karl von Schönborn to the Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg and his employment at the Würzburg Residence. Meanwhile, and again acting on a recommendation from Sibylla of Baden-Baden, Damian Hugo hired Italian painter Cosmas Damian Asam in May 1728 to replace Gresta. In October of that year, Asam requested leave to go home for the winter. In the seven weeks he had been at work, Asam changed Gresta's design on the assumption that those changes had been approved by Damian Hugo. This was in error. The Prince-Bishop, assuming Asam had not managed much in the time he had been at work, was surprised to see the opposite. Though initially angry, the Prince-Bishop forgave Asam as he was impressed with the painter's ability and rewarded his labor with a hunt. Another painter,, was not so lucky and was dismissed on 1732. When Neumann finally arrived at Bruchsal in March 1731, he was tasked first and foremost with designing a new staircase. He accomplished this in 1731–32, creating one of the world's most famous staircases. In July 1732, Damian Hugo hired to paint the exteriors of the other buildings of the palace complex with faux masonry. Marchini also painted the frescoes of the Entrada and the grotto behind it. From 1737 to 1743, Neumann and Stahl built the guardhouse, hunting office, arsenal, and the tower attached to the Hofkirche. The Hofkirche itself was finished in 1739.
The corps de logis was completed in 1743, but Damian Hugo died that very same year. He was succeeded by, who found the Chamber Wing still unfinished. Neumann and Stahl, now being succeeded by his son Leonhard, continued to work at Bruchsal under Hutten. Hutten ordered the renovation of much of the corps de logis in the Rococo style beginning in 1751 and lasting to 1754. In 1751, Johannes Zick was hired by Hutten following a recommendation from Neumann, for whom Zick had worked at Würzburg, to paint the dome above Neumann's staircase. Another employee of Neumann's, Johann Michael Feuchtmayer, was hired in 1752 to create the Rococo stuccowork Hutten desired. He and Zick worked together until 1756, for example producing the Marble Hall.
Leopold, Maria Anna, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visited Bruchsal Palace in July 1763 to begin a tour up the Rhine. Leopold wrote of the palace on 19 July, "The Residence of Bruchsal is worth seeing, its rooms being in the very best taste, not numerous, but so noble, indescribably charming and precious."
Decline
As a result of the Coalition Wars, the Prince-Bishopric of Speyer and the neighboring Margraviate of Baden had been forced to cede their territory on the left bank of the Rhine to France. Per the Treaty of Campo Formio, Baden was to be compensated with new territory, and this was effected. Baden was given seven times the amount of land it had lost, at the expense of Austria and ecclesiastical states such as the Prince-Bishopric of Speyer. This concession was confirmed in February 1803 by the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, though Baden was soon raised to a Grand Duchy. Baden's ruler, Charles Frederick, summarily occupied Bruchsal and forced the departure of the last Prince-Bishop, Philipp Franz von Walderdorf. Charles Frederick dissolved the "Principality" of Speyer and removed much of Bruchsal Palace's furnishings to Karlsruhe, though he awarded Walderdorf a pension of 200,000 guilders and allowed him to reside at Bruchsal in the winters.When Charles Frederick died in 1806, Walderdorf shared Bruchsal with the Grand Duke's widow, Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt with her unmarried daughter,, who had been replaced at court by Stéphanie de Beauharnais. Amalie spent three to four months of every summer at the palace, time she spent in a constant monotony that she often took vacations to escape. Amalie's household at Bruchsal and its upkeep was at her own expense. The early 19th century traveler Charles Edward Dodd, who visited the palace around 1818, described its "deserted splendour" wherein "the gay ladies of court complain bitterly of its magnificent dreariness." Two other contemporary visitors, Frederick William III of Prussia and the Russian empress Elizabeth Alexeievna, also noted the dreary state of Bruchsal Palace. Bruchsal's citizenry adored Amalie, though, and mourned her death on 27 July 1832.
Following Amalie von Baden's death, Bruchsal Palace was used for myriad purposes while it steadily deteriorated. In 1849, during the Baden Revolution, the ground floor of the corps de logis was used for a barrack and later a military hospital for Prussian soldiers.
In 1869, two years before the palace vanished from guide books in Germany, the Grand Duchy of Baden's Ministry of the Interior made plans to move a Catholic seminary into the palace. A major renovation was planned to fit the school, but were short lived. A decade later in 1880, the court jeweler of the Landgrave of Hesse wrote to the Badener government on behalf of the Vicomte de Montfort, a Parisian aristocrat. The Vicomte desired to reside at the palace and renovate it, but his request was rejected. Beginning at this time, hundreds of high-quality photographs were made of the palace's interiors.
A restoration of the palace grounds was carried out at Bruchsal from 1900 to 1909 under the direction of German art historian Fritz Hirsch.
The Grand Duchy of Baden was dissolved on 9 November 1918 and was followed by Grand Duke Frederick II's abdication on 22 November.
The beletage was opened to the public as a permanent exhibit of the palace's treasures in the 1920s.