New Residence, Bamberg: A Renaissance and Baroque Prince-Bishops’ Palace
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Palace
On this page13 sections
History
New Residence, Bamberg is a protected historic palace complex in Germany that served as the residence of Bamberg’s prince-bishops from 1604. A prince-bishop combined episcopal office with territorial and political authority, so the complex provided both a residence and a center for ecclesiastical government. Built in Renaissance and Baroque phases on Cathedral Square, it replaced the Alte Hofhaltung across the square and later entered royal, parliamentary, cultural, and library use.
Renaissance foundations
Construction began in 1604 under Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp von Gebsattel. The first phase created the rear two-wing section in the Renaissance style. This part formed the initial residence before the complex was enlarged toward Cathedral Square. The later scheme retained the earlier building while adding a more extensive and ceremonially oriented front section.
Baroque expansion
Between 1697 and 1703, Prince-Bishop Lothar Franz von Schönborn commissioned the front two-wing section. The architect Leonhard Dientzenhofer prepared the plans, and the new Baroque wings faced Cathedral Square. Schönborn abandoned a still larger expansion because funds were insufficient. Projecting stones surviving at the entrance from Cathedral Square toward Obere Karolinenstraße preserve evidence of the unfinished plan.
From princely residence to royal palace
Secularization, the early nineteenth-century transfer of church territories and institutions to secular states, ended the building’s role as a prince-bishops’ residence. In 1803 it became a royal residence in Bavaria. Its residents included Wilhelm, who became the first Duke in Bavaria in 1799, and Maximilian II, King of Bavaria from 1848 to 1864.
The palace was also connected with the final years of Louis-Alexandre Berthier, a French marshal and Napoleon’s chief of staff during the Napoleonic Wars. On 1 June 1815, Berthier died after falling from an upper window. He chose suicide rather than face capture by the approaching Russian army. A memorial plaque in the middle of Residenzstraße commemorates the event.
Otto of Wittelsbach, who ruled as the first King of Greece from 1832 to 1862, returned to Bavaria after being forced into exile. With his wife, Amalia of Oldenburg, he lived in the former prince-bishops’ residence from June 1863 until their deaths. Otto died in 1867 and Amalia in 1875.
Political and cultural uses
During a political crisis in 1919, the elected Bavarian government under Minister-President Johannes Hoffmann and the Bavarian Landtag, the state parliament of Bavaria, moved temporarily to Bamberg. Bavaria’s first democratic constitution was adopted in the Mirror Hall of the Harmonie on Schillerplatz, rather than in the residence itself.
The State of Bavaria owns the complex, which is administered by the Bavarian Palace Administration. It forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage designation “Town of Bamberg,” inscribed in 1993. The Bamberg State Gallery operates there as a branch of the Bavarian State Paintings Collections. From 1933, important paintings from Bamberg’s municipal collection were transferred to the residence after the municipal art collection or its gallery on Michelsberg was dissolved. The Bamberg State Library has occupied the east wing since 1965.
Remains
The New Residence is a four-wing sandstone complex. Its rear two Renaissance wings belong to the first building phase, while the two later Baroque wings extend toward Cathedral Square. More than 40 ceremonial and reception rooms survive within the palace, together with a main portal, a secondary portal, designed chimneys, and a staircase. The interiors range from formal court rooms to richly decorated chambers, while the rose garden occupies the space between the wings.
State rooms
Imperial Hall
The Imperial Hall occupies the second floor of the central wing and is one of the major examples of late Baroque interior art in Franconia. Melchior Steidl decorated its walls and ceilings with frescoes in 1707–1709 in the manner of Pietro da Cortona. The imagery presents Roman emperors and the four ancient world empires. Illusionistic ceiling painting, known as trompe-l’oeil, makes the flat surface appear three-dimensional.
Sixteen imperial portraits form part of the hall’s decoration. Except for one full-length figure, the portraits represent emperors of the Habsburg dynasty, a major European ruling house that supplied many Holy Roman Emperors and later governed the Austrian realms. The sequence begins with Henry II of the Ottonian dynasty and ends with Leopold I and Joseph I, who ruled during construction of the Baroque residence. The Ottonians were a medieval German ruling house associated with emperors including Henry I, Otto I, Otto II, Otto III, and Henry II.
White Hall
The White Hall originally served as the chief marshal’s rooms and as the place where visitors waited before an audience. Count von Seinsheim converted it into a representative dining room in 1772, changing the function of the room within the palace’s ceremonial arrangements.
Antichambre
The Antichambre, an antechamber or waiting room before a principal reception room, was the final room before the audience chamber in the eighteenth-century court sequence. It contains valuable tapestries, while its ceiling painting presents part of the mythological story of Aeneas. The painted subject extends from the dining room to the Chinese Cabinet. The room’s present furnishings reflect its use as a salon around 1900.
Chinese Cabinet
The Chinese Cabinet retains its original wooden paneling, decorated with Chinese lacquer painting. A valuable inlaid floor and numerous Chinese ceramics contribute to the room’s decoration. It also contains the writing desk of Prince-Bishop Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim, described as a masterpiece of late Rococo cabinetmaking.
State Gallery
The State Gallery presents old German painting and European painting, especially works from the Dutch Baroque. Its holdings include Hans Baldung’s The Flood from 1516 and works by Lucas Cranach the Elder, including Lucretia. Other works include paintings by Jan Lievens and Johann Kupetzky, a still life by Jan Davidsz. de Heem, and overdoor paintings by the Bamberg painters Marquard, Nikolaus, and Johann Christoph Treu. Overdoor paintings are decorative works placed above doorways.
Rose garden
The rose garden lies between the wings of the residence. Its beds contain 4,500 rose bushes enclosed by boxwood hedges. A garden pavilion designed by Johann Jakob Michael Küchel stands within the garden, whose layout and structures reflect its transformation from an earlier Renaissance garden into a Baroque garden.
The sixteenth-century Renaissance garden was reshaped in 1733 under Prince-Bishop Friedrich Carl von Schönborn according to plans by master builder Balthasar Neumann. Ferdinand Tietz created the garden sculptures in 1760 and 1761, using subjects from ancient mythology. The garden wall contains a blind arch with a memorial to Otto I of Greece and Amalia. Its inscription is in Greek and German. The garden also provides an eastern view across Bamberg’s urban landscape toward the Jura hills, including St. Michael’s Church and the city roofs.
