DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16633#0053
34
History of Garden Art
two of them by white stone. Small trees stand at the corners, and inside it are "all sorts
of pretty flowers." But the chief piece is a great tank at the end of the garden with a
fountain and many figures, Neptune being the most imposing one: and opposite is a
grotto bearing a life-size Bavaria at the top, which now ornaments the rotunda in the
chief garden. Finally, there is a round temple, with a Pegasus. There is a surprising
number of fountains for a garden that is not large. In this ornamentation Hainhofer
forgets his interest in botany.
Duke William has here made a masterpiece of a Residence garden, a place to live in
the open, where artistic ornament was of chief moment. But at that time he was not
living at the Residence, which his reigning son improved very finely, but had his own
private place, now Maxburg, where Hainhofer certainly found no garden, but tells of
a hermitage instead; and this proves that places of the sort were not only set up in remote
parks as at Gaillon and Hellbrunn, but also in the middle of the town, at a Residence.
"All this grotto is made in one piece, just as we see them copied in paintings and coppei-
plates of fathers and hermits." So says the learned Hainhofer. "It is made out of the
actual rock with cells cut in it, and there are firs and wild trees all about it, and water
gushes out of the rock, making a stream and a little pond; therein, made of lead, are
snakes, lizards, toads, crabs, etc. In this grotto everything is woven of bass, straw, and
sticks, and the altar is made of rock. In the little room in the winter there is only a poor
oven, and it is all dark, melancholy, gloomy, and even frightening. On the wall St.
Francis in the Wilderness is painted, and the ceiling is thatched with straw and sticks
as huts are. On the wall there is a tree with a stopper in it; and when you take out the
stopper you see through the tree out to the tower in the city, and its clock, and thus
know what hour has struck; and this is the peculiarity of the grotto. It also has a little
loggia above the water, and in it a long plank on trestles, and there are twelve low stools
of straw and thatch, made for the use of the princes . . . when they take a meal with
the Carthusians in the grotto. There are two of them here, a priest and a lay brother.
I asked the priest if the time seemed long and he said 'No,' for he was always meditating
as to 'quid Deus fecerit pro se, quid Deus faciat in se, quid Deus facturus sit de se.' " This
was quite in accordance with William's way of thinking, who always went about in coarse
clothing like a monk, and dressed all his servants in black; he had private paths made
from his castle to the Jesuits and the Capuchins, although his whole time and inclination
were devoted to the art and pride of this world.
But the main garden of the Residence was not even started at the time of Hainhofer's
first visit, for Maximilian laid it out soon after in the north at the other side of the town
trenches, as the last grand work of his otherwise completed Residence, after the old
pleasure-garden had fallen a victim, as we have related, to the extension buildings. This
garden was absorbed into town fortifications at the time of the Thirty Years' War, but at
the outset of this fatal epoch it was already finished. Maximilian had made a journey
to Italy as heir to the throne, and there his taste for art was much enlightened, which
made a great difference to the internal ornament of his Residence. The garden (Fig. 379)
certainly has a fine Italian casino with a flat balustraded roof and an open hall as chief
feature, but in its ensemble it shows far more leaning towards French examples. In front
of the casino there are two ponds separated with a balustraded path down the middle,
where there are fountains. Half-way down this middle walk, which widens out into a
History of Garden Art
two of them by white stone. Small trees stand at the corners, and inside it are "all sorts
of pretty flowers." But the chief piece is a great tank at the end of the garden with a
fountain and many figures, Neptune being the most imposing one: and opposite is a
grotto bearing a life-size Bavaria at the top, which now ornaments the rotunda in the
chief garden. Finally, there is a round temple, with a Pegasus. There is a surprising
number of fountains for a garden that is not large. In this ornamentation Hainhofer
forgets his interest in botany.
Duke William has here made a masterpiece of a Residence garden, a place to live in
the open, where artistic ornament was of chief moment. But at that time he was not
living at the Residence, which his reigning son improved very finely, but had his own
private place, now Maxburg, where Hainhofer certainly found no garden, but tells of
a hermitage instead; and this proves that places of the sort were not only set up in remote
parks as at Gaillon and Hellbrunn, but also in the middle of the town, at a Residence.
"All this grotto is made in one piece, just as we see them copied in paintings and coppei-
plates of fathers and hermits." So says the learned Hainhofer. "It is made out of the
actual rock with cells cut in it, and there are firs and wild trees all about it, and water
gushes out of the rock, making a stream and a little pond; therein, made of lead, are
snakes, lizards, toads, crabs, etc. In this grotto everything is woven of bass, straw, and
sticks, and the altar is made of rock. In the little room in the winter there is only a poor
oven, and it is all dark, melancholy, gloomy, and even frightening. On the wall St.
Francis in the Wilderness is painted, and the ceiling is thatched with straw and sticks
as huts are. On the wall there is a tree with a stopper in it; and when you take out the
stopper you see through the tree out to the tower in the city, and its clock, and thus
know what hour has struck; and this is the peculiarity of the grotto. It also has a little
loggia above the water, and in it a long plank on trestles, and there are twelve low stools
of straw and thatch, made for the use of the princes . . . when they take a meal with
the Carthusians in the grotto. There are two of them here, a priest and a lay brother.
I asked the priest if the time seemed long and he said 'No,' for he was always meditating
as to 'quid Deus fecerit pro se, quid Deus faciat in se, quid Deus facturus sit de se.' " This
was quite in accordance with William's way of thinking, who always went about in coarse
clothing like a monk, and dressed all his servants in black; he had private paths made
from his castle to the Jesuits and the Capuchins, although his whole time and inclination
were devoted to the art and pride of this world.
But the main garden of the Residence was not even started at the time of Hainhofer's
first visit, for Maximilian laid it out soon after in the north at the other side of the town
trenches, as the last grand work of his otherwise completed Residence, after the old
pleasure-garden had fallen a victim, as we have related, to the extension buildings. This
garden was absorbed into town fortifications at the time of the Thirty Years' War, but at
the outset of this fatal epoch it was already finished. Maximilian had made a journey
to Italy as heir to the throne, and there his taste for art was much enlightened, which
made a great difference to the internal ornament of his Residence. The garden (Fig. 379)
certainly has a fine Italian casino with a flat balustraded roof and an open hall as chief
feature, but in its ensemble it shows far more leaning towards French examples. In front
of the casino there are two ponds separated with a balustraded path down the middle,
where there are fountains. Half-way down this middle walk, which widens out into a