Top Historic Sights in Ludwigsburg, Germany
Explore the historic highlights of Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg Palace
Ludwigsburg Palace is one of the largest Baroque palaces in Germany and features an enormous garden in that style. From the 18th century to 1918 it was the principal royal palace of the dukedom that became in 1806 the Kingdom of Württemberg. The foundation stone was laid on May 17, 1704 under Duke Eberhard Ludwig of Württemberg (reigning monarch from 1693 to 1733). Begun as a hunting lodge, the project became m ...Seeschloss Monrepos
Monrepos is a lakeside palace in Ludwigsburg, Germany. Although quite far from and almost separate from Favorite Palace and Ludwigsburg Palace, by way of pedestrian paths it is connected to the rest of the grounds. It is one of the two minor palaces on the estate, along with the main one. The smaller ones were used as Hunting lodges. Of all three, this is the only one that is still owned by the royal family of Württe ...Schloss Favorite
Schloss Favorite is a Baroque hunting lodge built from 1717 to 1723 for the sovereign Duke of Württemberg, Eberhard Ludwig. The architect was Donato Giuseppe Frisoni. From 1806, King Frederick I of Württemberg converted the park into a ménagerie, including deer and chamois. The architect Nikolaus Friedrich von Thouret renovated the building's interior in neoclassical style. In the 20th century, the house was neglecte ...Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings
Historic Site of the week
Kromeriz Castle and Gardens
Kroměříž stands on the site of an earlier ford across the River Morava. The gardens and castle of Kroměříž are an exceptionally complete and well-preserved example of a European Baroque princely residence and its gardens and described as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The first residence on the site was founded by bishop Stanislas Thurzo in 1497. The building was in a Late Gothic style, with a modicum of Renaissance detail. During the Thirty Years' War, the castle was sacked by the Swedish army (1643).
It was not until 1664 that a bishop from the powerful Liechtenstein family charged architect Filiberto Lucchese with renovating the palace in a Baroque style. The chief monument of Lucchese's work in Kroměříž is the Pleasure Garden in front of the castle. Upon Lucchese's death in 1666, Giovanni Pietro Tencalla completed his work on the formal garden and had the palace rebuilt in a style reminiscent of the Turinese school to which he belonged.
After the castle was gutted by a major fire in March 1752, Bishop Hamilton commissioned two leading imperial artists, Franz Anton Maulbertsch and Josef Stern, arrived at the residence in order to decorate the halls of the palace with their works. In addition to their paintings, the palace still houses an art collection, generally considered the second finest in the country, which includes Titian's last mythological painting, The Flaying of Marsyas. The largest part of the collection was acquired by Bishop Karel in Cologne in 1673. The palace also contains an outstanding musical archive and a library of 33,000 volumes.
UNESCO lists the palace and garden among the World Heritage Sites. As the nomination dossier explains, 'the castle is a good but not outstanding example of a type of aristocratic or princely residence that has survived widely in Europe. The Pleasure Garden, by contrast, is a very rare and largely intact example of a Baroque garden'. Apart from the formal parterres there is also a less formal nineteenth-century English garden, which sustained damage during floods in 1997.
Interiors of the palace were extensively used by Miloš Forman as a stand-in for Vienna's Hofburg Imperial Palace during filming of Amadeus (1984), based on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who actually never visited Kroměříž. The main audience chamber was also used in the film Immortal Beloved (1994), in the piano concerto scene.