Schloss Johannisburg: Renaissance Palace and Electorate Residence in Aschaffenburg
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Palace
On this page17 sections
History
Schloss Johannisburg is a Renaissance palace in Aschaffenburg, Germany, built principally between 1605 and 1614 for Johann Schweikhard von Cronberg, Archbishop and Elector of Mainz. It replaced a medieval castle that had served as the second residence of the archbishops and electors of Mainz for centuries. The palace remained connected with the political and ecclesiastical history of the Electorate of Mainz until the early nineteenth century.
The Medieval Castle
The construction history of the medieval castle is poorly documented. A chapel dedicated to John the Baptist was founded on the site in 1284, and records describe alterations to the castle, particularly to its main defensive tower, during the fourteenth century. From the thirteenth century until 1803, the complex served as the second residence of the archbishops and electors of Mainz. An archbishop-elector was a senior archbishop of the Holy Roman Empire who also had the right to participate in electing the emperor. The archbishops of Mainz additionally held the office of imperial archchancellor.
Aschaffenburg hosted princely assemblies and ecclesiastical synods between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. The castle’s role as a residence brought notable visitors to the town, including King Louis the Bavarian in 1317 and King Wenceslaus of Luxembourg in 1383. In 1539, Albrecht of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, withdrew from Halle to Aschaffenburg because of the Reformation, the sixteenth-century religious movement that divided Western Christianity. He brought many works of art with him.
The medieval castle was looted and destroyed during the Second Margrave War in 1552. Many of the artworks associated with Albrecht of Brandenburg were lost, although paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder and his school survived. Cranach was a leading German Renaissance painter whose workshop produced religious, courtly, and Reformation-related works.
The Renaissance Palace
In 1604, Johann Schweikhard von Cronberg commissioned a new palace. Georg Ridinger, a Strasbourg architect and master builder, demolished most of the medieval remains and incorporated only the large Gothic defensive tower into the new building. The Renaissance was a European artistic and architectural movement that drew heavily on classical Roman forms.
The palace was constructed principally from 1605 to 1614, although final works continued until 1618 or 1619. The date 1607, carved on the elector’s large stone coat of arms in the wall known as the Coat-of-Arms Wall, is the oldest stated evidence for the beginning of construction. The city used that date for its four-hundredth-anniversary commemorations in 2007, while the customary interpretation of 1605 as the starting date remains historically unproven.
Schloss Johannisburg was inaugurated on 17 February 1614, the tenth anniversary of Johann Schweikhard’s election as elector. Commemorative coins depicted the palace on one side and the elector’s coat of arms or portrait on the other. After the inauguration, Johann Schweikhard conducted the government of the Electorate of Mainz from the new residence.
The name Johannisburg refers both to John the Baptist, the palace’s patron saint, and to Johann Schweikhard, its builder. Hans Junker created the elector’s coat of arms incorporated into the wall facing the Main. That emblem was destroyed during the Second World War and reproduced during restoration. The nearby Suicardusstraße also commemorates the builder.
War, Relocation, and Neoclassical Change
A historical anecdote of uncertain factual status connects the palace with the Swedish advance of 1631. According to the story, the Capuchin friar Bernhard von Trier saved Aschaffenburg and the palace from destruction by Swedish troops under King Gustav Adolf. After handing over the city keys, Bernhard supposedly joked that the king could take the palace to Sweden by rolling it away, referring to the Mainz wheels carved above the windows. Gustav Adolf reportedly laughed and spared the city and palace.
In 1792, Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal, Archbishop and Elector of Mainz, fled from advancing French forces from Mainz to Aschaffenburg. He brought valuable furniture, more than 200 paintings, the electoral library, a collection of liturgical vestments, and a copperplate collection. The copperplate collection was later lost during the Second World War.
Erthal extensively remodelled the palace and its surroundings in the Neoclassical style under the direction of his court architect, Emanuel Joseph von Herigoyen. Neoclassicism revived and systematised classical architectural principles. Herigoyen introduced a new central staircase, opened an additional passage, reworked the facade, and remodelled or destroyed parts of the seventeenth-century interior arrangement and decoration.
From Electoral Residence to Museum
During the brief period when Aschaffenburg belonged to the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt, Schloss Johannisburg served as a residence alongside the Palais Thurn und Taxis in Frankfurt. After Aschaffenburg passed to the Kingdom of Bavaria, the palace became property of the Bavarian kings. It belonged to the Bavarian Crown from 1814 to 1918.
After the end of the monarchy in 1918, parts of the palace were used as a museum and other parts as the town hall. The building now belongs to the Free State of Bavaria and is administered by the Bavarian Administration of State Palaces, Gardens and Lakes. It houses the Schlossmuseum, parts of the municipal museums of Aschaffenburg, and the administration of the city’s museums.
Bombing and artillery fire during the Battle of Aschaffenburg in March and April 1945 severely damaged the palace, which almost completely burned out. Postwar reconstruction relied on historical drawings, particularly Georg Ridinger’s documentation. The tower cupolas were not reproduced entirely faithfully, and the number of windows was increased. The interiors were redesigned for museum use rather than restored as exact historical rooms. Reconstruction, financed by Aschaffenburg and the Free State of Bavaria, was completed in time for reopening in 1964.
The palace and its collections continue to support cultural activities, including concerts by the Collegium musicum Aschaffenburg and performances on the carillon. The city marked the four-hundredth anniversary of the construction in 2007 and the four-hundredth anniversary of the inauguration in 2014.
Remains
Schloss Johannisburg is a strictly symmetrical, quadrangular complex of four Renaissance wings surrounding a square courtyard. The exterior measures approximately 87.5 by 86 metres, while the courtyard is about 51 metres wide on each side. The palace is built chiefly from red Odenwald sandstone quarried around Miltenberg and Obernburg am Main. A broad dry moat surrounds the building, and a bridge at the southeast wing provides access.
Walls, Towers, and Courtyard
Corner Towers and Medieval Keep
The side wings are three storeys high and approximately 13.5 metres deep. Each corner is marked by an eight-storey tower rising 52 metres. The height of the towers corresponds to the width of the wings. Their upper sections have balustrades around the seventh storey, while the narrower eighth storeys become octagonal and support octagonal domed cupolas.
The former Gothic defensive tower survives as a fifth tower at the centre of the northwest wing. Known in German castle architecture as a Bergfried, such a tower was principally intended for refuge and defence rather than permanent residence. Its incorporation into the Renaissance palace preserves the clearest physical connection with the medieval castle.
Inner Stair Towers and Facades
Four stair towers rise inside the palace. Their lowest storeys are square, and their upper storeys are octagonal. Belt cornices articulate the exterior storeys, while the window surrounds are profiled differently at each level. Three-storey dormer gables rise along the central axes of the intermediate wings, matching the tower storeys and displaying elaborate Italian Renaissance ornament, including obelisks.
The western corner is joined by a 20-metre-high substructure to the old town wall beside the Theoderic Gate. On the wall facing the Main, the central axis carries the elector’s coat of arms created by Hans Junker. The window lintels display the Mainz wheel with elements of the Cronberg arms, including a thistle head set in a crown and six blue iron hats. The present main portal, with a balcony and paired columns, belongs to Erthal’s period. The balcony on the city-facing side rests on four Renaissance-style columns and was accessible from the former dining room.
Interior Arrangement and Chapel
Rooms and Staircase
The original ground floor contained mainly service and administrative rooms, together with several kitchens. A silver chamber occupied the left part of the southeast wing, where the Schlossweinstube is now located. The elector’s apartment was on the first upper floor of the Main wing. The second floor contained an imperial apartment with residential rooms and a seven-window-axis Imperial Hall.
Herigoyen inserted a central, classicizing staircase into the northeast wing to replace the less convenient spiral stairs in the inner towers. He also opened an additional passage and reorganised the facade into thirteen window axes. These changes altered the original principal-floor arrangement, known as the bel étage, and removed or transformed much of the seventeenth-century interior decoration. The bel étage was the main palace floor intended for important reception and residential rooms.
Palace Chapel
The two-storey palace chapel occupies the northwest wing between the west tower and the incorporated medieval keep. From the courtyard, its position is marked chiefly by continuous windows and an unusually elaborate portal. The portal has a round-arched opening framed by paired Corinthian columns. Above them is a broken segmental pediment, with niches containing statues of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. A representation of Veronica’s veil with Christ’s face appears on the keystone, while a relief in tuff depicts Christ’s baptism and a statue of Mary with the infant Jesus stands above.
The chapel’s west gallery connects directly with the elector’s residential wing on the first floor of the southwest side. Another gallery lies behind the altar. Hans Junker’s altar, made in 1614 from reddish, black, and agate-coloured marble, fills the eastern wall. It contains about 150 free-standing or alabaster relief figures depicting Christ’s Passion and work of redemption. The central image shows the Crucifixion, with the Resurrection above it, and includes a portrait of Johann Schweikhard holding a model of the palace.
The pulpit, made in 1618, refers on its shaft to the prophets Moses, David, and Solomon. Its enclosure depicts the Church Fathers Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory, Christ as teacher of the world, the four Evangelists, and the apostles Paul and Peter. Repairs and reconstruction of the chapel after the Second World War continued until 1989.
Collections and Cultural Rooms
Paintings and Ecclesiastical Collections
The State Gallery of Aschaffenburg, a branch of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, displays works by Lucas Cranach the Elder, his son, and their pupils. The collection also includes paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, a leading Flemish Baroque painter, a Crucifixion group by Hans Baldung Grien, and a portrait of Albrecht of Brandenburg as Saint Martin. Dutch and Flemish paintings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries form another part of the gallery. The Cranach collection is described as one of Europe’s most important.
The Parament Chamber contains embroidered vestments, other ecclesiastical clothing, and liturgical equipment from the collections of the archbishops of Mainz. A parament is a textile or garment used in Christian worship. The palace also contains the elector’s residential rooms with original furniture associated with Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal from around 1800.
Models, Municipal Collections, and Library
A collection of 54 cork architectural models represents ancient buildings in Rome and other structures. Carl Joseph May, a court confectioner and maker of cork architectural models, and his son Georg began producing them in 1792. The collection includes a three-metre-diameter model of the Colosseum and is described as the world’s largest collection of its kind, while the Colosseum model is described as the largest cork model in the world.
Part of the municipal museum collections has been housed in the palace since 1972. These holdings include sculptures from the period of construction, city views, guild objects, furniture, German and foreign ceramics, especially faience, stoneware, and porcelain, stoneware made at the Dammer manufactory, and modern paintings by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Christian Schad.
The State Court Library of Aschaffenburg administers the former collegiate library. It comprises approximately 22,000 volumes, 86 manuscripts, and 586 incunabula, books printed before 1501. The palace also contains the Schlosskellerei and Schlossweinstuben.
Garden and Riverside Terrace
The palace garden extends from Schloss Johannisburg toward the Pompejanum and the St. Germain Terrace. Restricted space and the nearby Capuchin monastery prevented the creation of a large formal Baroque garden beside the palace. Instead, the riverside garden contains narrow winding paths, arbours, pergolas, walls, seating niches, footbridges, and other architectural elements.
Mediterranean figs and agaves are among the principal plants. The garden also contains a breakfast pavilion built for Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal. Archaeological investigation of the narrow palace terrace beside the Main in 2019 and 2020 examined traces associated with a garden plan from 1744. The evidence makes an earlier Baroque garden probable, with former level differences of up to six metres. These levels were apparently reduced to a uniform surface toward the end of the eighteenth century during Herigoyen’s remodelling.
Carillon
A carillon installed in the eighth storey of the east tower in 1969 contains 48 bells covering four octaves. A carillon is a musical instrument whose tuned bells can be played from a keyboard or by an automatic mechanism. The instrument can be played manually and also sounds automatically three times a day.
