Tettnang Palace - usually referred to as Neues Schloss - is one of three castles in Tettnang. Originally a fort stood on the site of the current castle. From 1260 under 1780 it was the residence of the Counts of Montfort. The old fort was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War in 1633. Count Anton III of Montfort subsequently started rebuilding the castle in 1712, hiring the architect Christoph Gessinger, a Benedictine friar from Isny, to draught designs for a new castle. His aim was to tear down the remains of the mediaeval fort to make way for a completely new palace. In 1728 construction work came to a grinding halt when the funds of the Count ran dry. Count Anton died in 1733 and the castle remained unfinished.
A major section of the facade along with parts of the interior decoration were damaged by fire in 1753. Under the partronage of Count Franz Xaver, restoration work was subsequently completed in 1770. The fine sculptures and paintwork inside the castle were carried out by Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer, Käte Schaller-Härlin and Andreas Brugger. Jakob Emele was responsible for the rococo work.
When the county of Tettnang was sold to Austria in 1770 (to pay off debts), most of the interior fittings were sold and the castle passed into public ownership. When Tettnang was handed over to Bavaria as part of the Peace of Pressburg, the castle returned into German ownership.
Final restoration of the castle was carried out between 1960 and 1982. In 1997 the castle was opened to the public.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.