St. Emmeram’s Palace: A Former Abbey Transformed into a Princely Residence
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- German, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page16 sections
History
St. Emmeram’s Palace is a palace complex in Regensburg, Germany, developed from the former Benedictine Abbey of St. Emmeram and given its present residential character through nineteenth-century Neo-Renaissance rebuilding. The abbey originated in the eighth century and received imperial immediacy in 1295, meaning that it answered directly to the Holy Roman Emperor rather than to an intermediate territorial lord.
The Abbey and the Thurn und Taxis Family
The former abbey grew into an extensive religious complex before its transfer to the Thurn und Taxis family. The family had lived in Regensburg since 1748. From 1741 until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, it held the office of Principal Commissioner, representing the emperor at the Perpetual Imperial Diet, the long-standing imperial assembly held in Regensburg. Since 1704, the family had also possessed the hereditary office of Imperial General Postmaster.
Secularization, the state dissolution and transfer of ecclesiastical institutions and property, changed the ownership of St. Emmeram. Some monks remained after the process began in 1803, but in 1810 Carl Theodor von Dalberg transferred the extensive abbey buildings and properties to the Thurn und Taxis family. The Kingdom of Bavaria confirmed the arrangement in 1815 as compensation for the family’s cession of its postal rights.
The transfer made the former abbey the family’s principal residence and helped keep the family in Regensburg after the end of the Holy Roman Empire. This preserved local employment that might otherwise have been lost if the family had moved to Frankfurt, where its postal headquarters remained. The transferred complex included the three-winged convent building, cloister, refectory, monastic kitchen, staircase, Lions’ Hall, chapter house, library hall, and properties in the city and surrounding countryside.
Nineteenth-Century Expansion
Under Prince Maximilian Karl, construction began in 1827 on a classical stable complex and riding school with a riding hall on the western grounds of the former abbey garden. The building was inaugurated on 13 May 1832. About 200 workers and many assistants were employed during its construction, which provided work for Regensburg’s impoverished population.
Between 1836 and 1841, a family crypt chapel was built beside the west wing of the cloister. The chapel became the Thurn und Taxis family mausoleum, where princes, princesses, and the family’s unmarried children continue to be buried. Later in the century, the palace underwent a much more extensive transformation.
Between 1883 and 1888, Prince Maximilian Maria von Thurn und Taxis substantially helped plan the rebuilding that gave the residence its present form. He died in 1885 at the age of 23, and his brother, Prince Albert von Thurn und Taxis, completed the project in 1888. The deteriorated southern wing was demolished and replaced by a new 150-metre-long southern wing in the Neo-Renaissance style. The east-wing façades toward the park were adapted, while those facing the palace courtyard were redesigned. Interior decoration and the renewal of the state rooms in the east wing continued for several years.
The late nineteenth-century works cost 2,100,500 marks, excluding the electrical installation. Electricity was generated by a steam-powered dynamo supplied by the Nuremberg firm Schuckert & Co. These changes turned the former monastic complex into a representative princely residence while retaining substantial parts of its earlier fabric.
Expansion, War, and Later Use
After 1904, the complex expanded southwest of the old palace grounds. The former monastic building yard was demolished and replaced by the Court Marshal’s Office, which was linked to the old Emmeram Gate by the newly built Helenentor. A second stable building was added to the north, and Helenenstraße connected the enlarged complex with Regensburg’s newer road network.
During the Second World War, the Regensburg Wehrmacht command headquarters was located in the palace. A later change affected the former carriage-and-automobile depot. In 2005, its courtyard was roofed over and the depot was converted into a brewery restaurant.
A proposal made public in 2007 sought to convert the former abbey complex into a luxury hotel with a new underground car park. The plans would have affected the cloister, Asam Hall, and the old and new convent buildings, as well as requiring the removal of 50 trees in the princely park. Public opposition and a civic campaign led to the abandonment of the project.
Parts of the palace remain inhabited by members of the Thurn und Taxis family. The complex also functions as a museum, including the Thurn und Taxis Stable Museum and the Thurn und Taxis Princely Treasury, a branch museum of the Bavarian National Museum. Archaeological finds from the former Benedictine abbey area, dating from the Early Middle Ages to the modern period, are protected as an archaeological monument, while the palace complex is also protected as an architectural monument in Regensburg.
Remains
St. Emmeram’s Palace combines surviving abbey buildings with large nineteenth-century palace wings, courtyards, gardens, and service structures. The complex is regarded as one of the largest inhabited palaces in Europe. Its physical arrangement still reveals the transition from a Benedictine monastery to a princely residence, with the cloister and older convent buildings adjoining state rooms and later palace additions.
Former Abbey Buildings
Convent Buildings
The surviving former abbey buildings include the Romanesque old convent and the new convent, whose fabric dates from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Rooms from the monastic complex were converted into state rooms, but the cloister itself was not substantially altered. The older buildings remain integrated into the palace and museum areas.
Cloister
Parts of the cloister survive around the cloister garden. Its east wing contains Romanesque elements, while the north wing is Gothic and has an elaborate portal leading toward the church. The cloister projects into the garden and remains part of the museum route, preserving a clear architectural link between the former abbey and the later residence.
Crypt Chapel
The family crypt chapel adjoins the west wing of the cloister and projects into the cloister garden. Carl Victor Keim, the princely building adviser, designed it in the Neo-Gothic style, and the royal architect Friedrich von Gärtner assessed the design favorably. Its continued use as the family mausoleum gives the chapel an active funerary function within the palace complex.
Palace and Stable Complexes
State Rooms and Palace Wings
The new southern wing extends for 150 metres and presents its principal façade toward the tree-lined Prince Anselm Avenue. The east wing was adapted toward the park, and the façades facing the palace courtyard were redesigned during the rebuilding of 1883 to 1888. The state rooms contain Brussels-period tapestries and furnishings transferred from the former Thurn und Taxis Palace in Frankfurt am Main.
Stable and Riding School
The 1827 to 1832 stable and riding-school complex is a symmetrical, three-winged classical building. Its central section contains the riding hall, while the side wings house stables and a stable pharmacy for sick horses. Together, the wings enclose a courtyard of honour to the east, with access to both the eastern palace grounds and the western street.
The riding hall contains 16 plaster reliefs by the royal sculptor Ludwig Schwanthaler. They show mounted and horse-taming heroes of Greek mythology, including Hector, Achilles, Ares, and Heracles, together with horses and chariots. Above the main entrance, a large stone relief depicts Victoria, the Roman personification of victory, crowning victorious horses. The reliefs are completely preserved and are regarded as the best surviving evidence of Schwanthaler’s work.
Court Marshal’s Office and Depot
The post-1904 Court Marshal’s Office was connected with the historic Emmeram Gate by the Helenentor. The second stable was built as a large, tiled-walled depot for carriages and newly emerging automobiles. It enclosed a large courtyard entered through a gateway topped by a clock tower. The former depot now contains the brewery restaurant created after the courtyard was roofed in 2005.
Gardens, Fortifications, and Collections
Palace Park
The former abbey and palace grounds include an English landscape garden enclosed as a landscaped precinct. From 1872, Carl Joseph von Effner incorporated remains of the Emmeram bastion and the city wall into its design. The mound of the Emmeram bastion remains recognizable in the western part of the park. Earlier fortification outworks had occupied the area before they were cleared and planted with trees under Prince Karl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis.
In the eastern part of the grounds, Therese of Mecklenburg, a member of the Mecklenburg princely house, commissioned the garden pavilion Theresens Ruh. The Classical villa was struck by a bomb near the end of the Second World War and demolished in 1945.
Courtyard Well and Collections
A sixteenth-century well stands in the main courtyard, with a statue of Arnulf of Carinthia as its sculptural decoration. Arnulf was a ninth-century Carolingian ruler who became king of East Francia and emperor. The Stable Museum houses historical carriages, while associated collections include porcelain, furniture, silverwork, weapons, and clothing collected by members of the Thurn und Taxis family and later sold to cover tax debts.
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