Favorite Palace
The Favorite Palace on the banks of the Rhine in Mainz was a significant Baroque palace complex in the Electorate of Mainz, featuring elaborate gardens and water features. The Favorite was built in several stages, starting in the year 1700. It was essentially completed around the year 1722. Its patron, Lothar Franz von Schönborn, Prince-elector of Mainz and Prince-Bishop of Bamberg, came from one of the most prominent Franconian-Middle Rhine noble families of the time, the Schönborn family, and was the patron of many Baroque gardens and palaces. The Lustschloss Favorite was completely destroyed during the Siege of Mainz in 1793 in the French Revolutionary Wars.
The model for the complex was the French palace of the Château de Marly of Louis XIV. The Favorite palace, with its further development of the formalistic early Baroque garden design in the style of the Palace of Versailles, is considered a model for many other gardens that emerged later in the subsequent late Baroque era of garden art.
History
The history before the Favorite was constructed
The site of the Favorite palace is located directly on the banks of the Rhine opposite the mouth of the Main and south of the medieval fortress ring outside the gates of Mainz. It was already used as a place for gardens in the Middle Ages: There was the older abbot's garden as well as the collegiate garden of the later Saint Alban's Abbey outside Mainz. St. Alban was looted and completely destroyed by the troops of Margrave Albrecht Alcibiades of Brandenburg-Kulmbach on the evening of 28 August 1552, during the Second Margrave War.In 1672, baron Christoph Rudolf von Stadion, acquired the collegiate garden. After he was able to acquire the adjacent abbot's garden in 1692, he united both gardens. At the end of the 17th century, Stadion was an important figure in the Electorate of Mainz: he was President of the Court Council, Provost of the cathedral, Provost of St. Alban, and himself multiple times a candidate for the office of Prince-elector. He also wanted to build a stately Baroque pleasure garden in the emerging fashion of the time. From the merged older gardens emerged a five-hectare utility and pleasure garden in the High Baroque style with a single-story Rhine mansion, utility buildings, vineyards, as well as fruit and ornamental trees, known as the Stadion Garden.
After Stadion's death in 1700, the property was acquired from his heirs by Lothar Franz von Schönborn, who had been elected Elector of Mainz only six years earlier, for 16,500 Reichsthaler. The approximately 400-meter-long and 140-meter-wide garden complex was to become the core piece of the Lustschloss Favorite planned by him.
Construction of the Favorite
When Lothar Franz von Schönborn was elected Prince-elector of Mainz in 1694, a Baroque golden age began for the city of Mainz, not only in terms of urban development. Schönborn, from a prominent Middle Rhine-Franconian noble family, the Schönborn family, epitomized the ideal of an absolutist ruler who loved splendor. At the same time, as he noted in a moment of self-awareness, like many other members of the Schönborn family, he was possessed by the building bug. In his extensive surviving private correspondence, the following saying of his is recorded: "Building is a pleasure and costs a lot of money, every fool likes his own cap."As Prince-elector of Mainz, Lothar Franz planned a representative Baroque pleasure garden for his residence city. The name was inspired by the Habsburg palace Favorita near Vienna, a tribute by the Prince-elector and Archchancellor of the Holy Roman Empire to the Habsburg ruling house, with which he had close political ties. Architecturally, the model was Marly-le-Roi, built between 1680 and 1686, so Schönborn liked to call his pleasure palace Favorite "le petit Marly". Due to his extensive construction activities and the often simultaneous large construction projects in his ecclesiastical principalities, Schönborn could draw on a large number of skilled builders for the construction of the Favorite. He jokingly and respectfully referred to them as "my clever construction-directing gods."
The architects and fortress builders Nikolaus Person and Maximilian von Welsch were at his disposal. They left the gardening work to the chief gardener Johann Kaspar Dietmann, whose horticultural expertise was highly valued by the Elector and utilized in other locations as well. In artistic and design matters, they worked closely with the "courtier-architect" Philipp Christoph von und zu Erthal, the builder of the eponymous Erthaler Hof. A fourth involved architect was Freiherr von Rotenhan, who also served as the chief stable master in the Elector's service. In the later construction and renovation phase, influences from Anselm Franz von Ritter zu Groenesteyn, known as the "courtier-architect," and, through his mediation, the Parisian court architect Germain Boffrand were added to the design of the Favorite. For the complex waterworks, Schönborn enlisted the famous builder Abraham Huber from Salzburg in 1724, whom he respectfully and humorously called "neptunum abrahamum."
First construction phase (1700–1722)
After acquiring the Stadion Garden in 1700, Schönborn immediately began expanding the complex. His architects initially followed the orientation of the previous garden and aligned it along the Rhine towards Mainz. The first complex consisted of a main building, a single-story Rhine mansion with two wings. This building, whose narrow side also contained the main entrance, was situated directly on the Rhine, separated only by a driveway. This building was used as a concert and dining hall.This was followed by a narrow garden with sculptures from the previous garden, whose main axis also pointed towards Mainz. The complex, which essentially retained the form and extent of the Stadion Garden, existed in this form until about 1705. From around 1708, the electoral fortress builder Maximilian von Welsch was permanently involved in the construction project.
Until 1714, further construction progressed only slowly. The War of Spanish Succession from 1701 to 1714 indirectly posed a threat to Mainz from the French, especially since the complex was outside the fortress ring. Additionally, this conflict significantly strained the resources of the Electorate, causing Lothar Franz von Schönborn to partially put his most important Mainz construction project on hold. However, remaining invoices reveal that the work on the Favorite had already cost Schönborn 93,641 Guilders and 58 Kreuzer by 1710. Larger plant purchases were also reported for the early years. The 1702 annual report shows 6,000 hornbeams from the Spessart, Taxus bushes, and chestnut trees, which were used for the design of the Boulingrin in the northernmost part of the garden, making it one of the oldest garden sections created under Schönborn.
Nevertheless, the large water terraces of the lower parterre and the main parterre above it were completed in 1711/1712. From 1717, the construction of the actual palace complex followed at the upper end of the main parterre, as seen from the Rhine. Originally planned as the central building of the complex, the palace now assumed the function of a splendid orangery. In 1717/1718, Welsch also expanded the main parterre with its six semicircularly arranged cavalier houses. The Prince-elector commissioned his court sculptor Franz Matthias Hiernle with the figurative decoration of the individual facilities. The two large garden areas adjoining the right of the main parterre were laid out by 1722.
By around 1722, the Favorite palace, with its buildings, water features, and various gardens, was preliminarily completed as a coherent complex. Prince-elector Lothar Franz von Schönborn and his successors used the Favorite from then on for representation purposes and for festivities of the electoral court. A series of 14 copper engravings of the Favorite, made between 1723 and 1726 by Salomon Kleiner, an electoral court engineer and talented copper engraver, shows the complex in detail but often exaggeratedly in perspective, with its various aspects after its completion. An anonymous contemporary report describes the impressive effect of the festive complex on the viewer:
''"The ascending structure of the Favorite never appeared more magnificent than by night illumination. When one traveled on the Rhine from Kostheim during such festivities, it seemed as if a luminous fairy-tale castle lay ahead, reflecting a brilliant image in a thousand flickers on the smooth water surface. The six pavilions rising to the height of the Alban rampart looked like burning palaces. The balconies and facades seemed carved from diamonds; the water features hurled sparkling gemstones against the dark night sky. The groups of trees and avenues cast a dazzling green, and amidst all this splendor, joyful people mingled under the beautiful music.''
Second construction phase (1722–1735)
During the reign of Prince-elector Francis Louis of Palatinate-Neuburg, the last major expansion of the Favorite took place. The northern part, the so-called Boulingrin with its extensive horse chestnut promenades, was redesigned. A garden house oriented towards the Rhine, the so-called Porcelain House, was built there. Since the Porcelain Manufactory in Höchst near Frankfurt am Main belonged to the Electorate of Mainz from 1746 onwards, the Porcelain House and other buildings of the Favorite were furnished with products from the manufactory in the later period of the complex. It is also said that the interior of the building itself was tiled in white and blue. The architect was Anselm Franz Freiherr von Ritter zu Groenesteyn, who was trained in Paris. However, it is highly likely that Lothar Franz von Schönborn had already planned this expansion and had started construction before his death in 1729.Further extensions and conversions until 1790
After the redesign of the northern part of the Favorite, there were no larger or significant construction projects. For practical reasons, additional stables and utility buildings were built in the western part of the complex away from the Rhine, but these did not affect the artistic aspect of the complex. More significant for the external appearance of the Favorite, however, was the replacement of numerous water basins and installations with purely horticultural facilities. It is likely that the fountains created for the water installations of the Favorite were not capable of providing the necessary amount of water in the long term.In 1746, Anselm Franz Freiherr von Ritter zu Groenesteyn worked on the orangery once again. The last landscaping work on the Favorite was carried out around 1788–1790 by the renowned garden architect Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell, with changes to the now expanded complex in the new " English landscape garden style." Sckell was originally commissioned to "design the surroundings of the Mainz Favorite in a natural taste." However, Sckell largely respected the old garden's existing structure. After his alterations, which effectively led to two stylistically different adjacent garden complexes, he summarized: "...so that now both in the future will not dispute each other's merits; each will stand on its own and be admired without the other's contribution." The work on the garden complexes of the Favorite, however, did not progress beyond an early initial stage. Sckell's plans for the redesign, however, influenced the planning of the Neue Anlage in the 1820s.
Further-reaching plans after 1790, such as the expansion of the Rhine mansion or the extension of the Favorite after the purchase of the neighboring land of the Mainz Charterhouse, were started but not completed due to the political situation.