DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16633#0166
146
History of Garden Art
Philip of Mainz had raised the family to honour and dignity, a great number of his
nephews, who had been destined to the career from their youth up, attained the high
position of ecclesiastical lords. This peculiar sort of nepotism appears once more at
Cologne as a late flower of the Italian Renaissance growing on German soil. And these
fundamental relationships come out in a similarity of ideas, a proud and masterful spirit,
an unbounded love of building, and also a sense of responsibility directed less to politics
than to art. Wherever the Schonborn family came, life was full of activity. Their castle
(built by the non-clerical part of the family in Lower Austria on the River Enns) shows
the artistic feeling in all of them, both by its situation and in the importance of the garden
FIG. 467. CASTLE OF SCHONBORN—GROUND-PLAN
at the new home. It is one of those works whose tout ensemble is one of great magnificence
in strict adherence to French rules (Fig. 467).
Of the clergy the most conspicuous was Lothar Franz, who became Bishop of
Bamberg in 1693, also Archbishop of Mainz and Elector in 1695. The castles he built
have been engraved, gardens and all, by Salomon Kleiner, and the engravings were pub-
lished in 1728. These pictures are the only abiding witness to the gardens, scarcely
one of which has endured to the present day. The shooting-box, Seehof, one of the
smaller places, near Bamberg, was received as a legacy by Lothar Franz from his pre-
decessor Marquard von Stauffenberg, after whom it took another name, Marquardsburg
(Fig. 468). Lothar Franz finished it, and liked to live there while his residence at Bam-
berg was being rebuilt. To suit its character as a shooting-box, the central building was
quite open. The original plan may have been to make it easy for huntsmen from the
district to effect an entrance on all sides by four approaches, and so assemble at
History of Garden Art
Philip of Mainz had raised the family to honour and dignity, a great number of his
nephews, who had been destined to the career from their youth up, attained the high
position of ecclesiastical lords. This peculiar sort of nepotism appears once more at
Cologne as a late flower of the Italian Renaissance growing on German soil. And these
fundamental relationships come out in a similarity of ideas, a proud and masterful spirit,
an unbounded love of building, and also a sense of responsibility directed less to politics
than to art. Wherever the Schonborn family came, life was full of activity. Their castle
(built by the non-clerical part of the family in Lower Austria on the River Enns) shows
the artistic feeling in all of them, both by its situation and in the importance of the garden
FIG. 467. CASTLE OF SCHONBORN—GROUND-PLAN
at the new home. It is one of those works whose tout ensemble is one of great magnificence
in strict adherence to French rules (Fig. 467).
Of the clergy the most conspicuous was Lothar Franz, who became Bishop of
Bamberg in 1693, also Archbishop of Mainz and Elector in 1695. The castles he built
have been engraved, gardens and all, by Salomon Kleiner, and the engravings were pub-
lished in 1728. These pictures are the only abiding witness to the gardens, scarcely
one of which has endured to the present day. The shooting-box, Seehof, one of the
smaller places, near Bamberg, was received as a legacy by Lothar Franz from his pre-
decessor Marquard von Stauffenberg, after whom it took another name, Marquardsburg
(Fig. 468). Lothar Franz finished it, and liked to live there while his residence at Bam-
berg was being rebuilt. To suit its character as a shooting-box, the central building was
quite open. The original plan may have been to make it easy for huntsmen from the
district to effect an entrance on all sides by four approaches, and so assemble at