Würzburg Residence
Würzburger Residenz
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- Building the palace cost more than 1.5 million guilders, at a time when a day labourer earned about one guilder a week.
- Early construction was financed partly by 600,000 florins the Schönborn prince-bishop won in a court case.
- The palace has almost 400 rooms on a footprint of about 92 by 167 metres, and its main suite of state rooms runs for some 150 metres.
- Napoleon stayed here three times between 1806 and 1813 and, according to tradition, called it the largest parsonage in Europe.
- Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria was born in the Residence in 1821, and the Frankonia Fountain in front of it was unveiled in his honour in 1894.
- Neumann completed the staircase in 1737, fifteen years before Tiepolo painted its vault, which rises to about 23 metres.
- Lieutenant John Davis Skilton, an American Monuments Man, arrived in June 1945 and had the exposed vaults covered with a temporary roof, saving Tiepolo frescoes from the damp.
- The Court Chapel's original ceiling paintings by Johann Rudolf Byss were lost in the 1945 fire and had to be reconstructed.
- The final series of the 50 Deutsche Mark banknote showed Balthasar Neumann on the front and the Würzburg Residence on the back.
- Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited the Residence in August 1845.
Why it is worth it
The Würzburg Residence was built for the prince-bishops of Würzburg, rulers of a small ecclesiastical state on the Main who wanted a palace to stand beside those of kings. Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn commissioned it in 1720; the shell was finished by 1744 and the interiors by 1780. Its chief architect was Balthasar Neumann, who worked with Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt and Maximilian von Welsch from the Viennese and south German traditions and consulted the French court architects Robert de Cotte and Germain Boffrand - the result is a building that fuses the grand manners of Vienna and Paris into something entirely its own.
Everything leads to the staircase. Neumann covered the stairwell with a single vault spanning roughly 18 by 32 metres without any supporting column, and in 1752-1753 the Venetian Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, working with his son Domenico, filled it with what is usually called the largest continuous ceiling fresco in the world, about 580 square metres. As you climb, the vault opens up overhead: Apollo presiding over the heavens, and around the edges the continents known to the eighteenth century - America, Asia, Africa and Europe - personified by regal female figures surrounded by their peoples and creatures. Tiepolo slipped portraits into the Europe section: the reigning prince-bishop, Karl Philipp von Greiffenclau, the stuccoist Antonio Bossi, Neumann himself, his own son and the painter. Beyond lie the White Hall, a cool, colourless room of Rococo stucco by Antonio Bossi, and the Imperial Hall, lavish with stucco and Tiepolo frescoes of historical and mythological scenes. The Court Chapel, tucked into a corner of the building, is one of the jewels of Baroque church design in Germany, and the Mirror Cabinet glitters with painted glass panels.
On 16 March 1945 a British air raid set the city ablaze and gutted much of the palace; Neumann's stone vaults held as the burning roof collapsed above them, and with them Tiepolo's staircase survived. Restoration lasted until 1987. UNESCO inscribed the Residence as a World Heritage Site in 1981, citing the international character of the workshop that made it. Today the palace also houses the university's Martin von Wagner Museum, and the Court Garden lies behind it.
Getting there
The Residence stands in the centre of Würzburg, about 1 km from the old town's heart. Würzburg Hauptbahnhof is served several times a day by ICE trains from Frankfurt; from the station it is a walk of roughly 15-20 minutes, or a short bus ride to Residenzplatz. The nearest airport is Nuremberg Airport (NUE), about 89 km away.
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From the encyclopaedia
The Würzburg Residence is a palace in Würzburg, Germany. Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt and Maximilian von Welsch, representatives of the Austrian/Southern German Baroque style, were involved in the construction, as well as Robert de Cotte and Germain Boffrand, who were followers of the French style. Balthasar Neumann, court architect of the Bishop of Würzburg, was the principal architect of the Residence, which was commissioned by the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn and his brother Friedrich Carl von Schönborn in 1720, and completed in 1744. The Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, assisted by his son, Domenico, painted frescoes in the building.
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