This is the Fountain Courtyard
At one side of the Fountain Courtyard is the Church of All Saints built by King Ludwig I (reg. 1825-1848) between 1826 and 1837. In the latter part of the king's life, he became a religious recluse. Originally, it was a Byzantine style chapel whose walls were decorated by colorful frescoes on a gold background by Heinrich Maria von Hess but during WWII, it suffered extensive damage and it had to be rebuilt with great loss of its original flavor. This is a photograph of what the Church used to look like. The idea for the church was sparked off by the king's visit to Palermo in 1823, when he was still the Crown Prince, after attending a midnight Mass in the palace chapel there which was built in a mix of Norman and Byzantine styles. He was so moved that he exclaimed: "That's the kind of court chapel I want!" To comply with Ludwig's wishes, his architect Klenze took St. Mark's in Venice as his model because he saw this as a quintessentially Byzantine building, but he interpreted it in terms of classical antiquity. The original floors were colored marble and its wall imitation marbles.
Photo of the front of the church facing the Marstallplatz (from the internet) designed in mixed Romaneque and Gothic style. The church was extensively damaged during WWII but has been rebuilt after 1945 but re-opened to the public only in 2003.
steps leading up to the gallery
The church is now used for not the worship of God but the gods of chamber music.
Its new style is simple, austere, minimalist
the spiral staircase entrance to the gallery from the ground floor
The seats for chamber concert, the former altar now turned into a small stage
the window at one end of the church
A close up of the window: no more stained glass.
A close up of the window: no more stained glass.
A pastoral painting adorning the corridor from the church to the King's adjoining bedroom
Another landscape painting
A third painting decorating the corridors leading to the Charlottenzimer and Hofgartenrakt in the early 17th century which joined them to the other recently built sections of the Residenz dating from the
14th and 15th centuries, the so called Neuveste. Around 1615 Duke
Maximilian I had the corridor transformed into apartments for visiting
rulers and other guests. Then Princess
Charlotte Auguste, the daughter of the first King of Bavaria, Maximilian
I Joseph, remodelled the rooms for her own use in 1814. That is why some of
them are called the Charlottenzimmer whilst the other rooms were called the Hofgartenzimmer. The items on
display came from the Hofgartentrakt, which overlook the Court Garden
north of the Residenz, destroyed in WWII. In
three rooms there are furnishings belonging to the first King of
Bavaria and his family.
Tapestries decoating the walls of the rooms.
This is part of the Hofgartenzimmer / Charlottenzimmer (Court Garden Rooms / Charlotte Rooms. The beds, chairs and console tables were commissioned by Duke Karl II August of Palatine-Zweibrüchen around 1781 from Paris workshop. They were brought here by the Duke's younger brother the Elector of Bavaria, Max Joseph (reg. 1799-1825).
The bed in Charlotte's room
The clock at the corner
An erect spinet at the corner of the music room, an early form of piano developed from the harpischord made by Gregor Deiss of Munich 1810-1820
The corridor and gallery of paintings
A model of the Residenz in the Hall of the Knights of St. George, a room used since early 17th Century as an antechamber to the apartments of the royal family with guards and servants on duty here and was later renamed after the Order of the Knights of St. George which was reconstituted in 1742 by Elector Karl Albretcht (reg. 1726-1745 and after 1842 as Emperor Charles VII of the Holy Roman Empire)
A corridor photograph of the Green House at the nearby Royal Garden
This is part of Second Antechamber, which form part of the Ornate Rooms, used exclusively for meeting foreign diplomats and for court ceremonies by Emperor Charles VII, furnished first in 1726 by architect Joseph Effner but after the fire here in 1729, they were redone and completed in 1737 by the French architect François Cuvilliés , who now has a court theatre in the Residenz named after him. The Ornate Rooms are an excellent example of South German Rococo style.
vases decorating the consoles in the Antechamber
This is the Audience Chamber where the Emperor give audiences to foreign dignitaries. Next to the State Bedroom are two room, the Cabinet of Mirrors or the Cabinet of Miniatures were created by Cuvilliés in
the French style to complement the large gallery of paintings at the
other end of the suite. The furniture in both rooms form part of the
original inventory but he carvings on the wall,s (1731-32), the ceiling
stucco work, the mirrors and the lacquer walls in the Cabinet of
Miniature are all reconstructed.
Another of the Ornate Rooms, the Green Gallery with portraits of members of the
royal family
This is the Main Room of the Green Galley, formerly a banquet hall
royal family
This is the Main Room of the Green Galley, formerly a banquet hall
An oriental overlaid porcelain jar
Gilt tea service by Johann Gregorius Höroldt in 1723/24 in Meissen with serving tray by Johann Engelbrecht in Augsburg 1729-1733
decorations in the Mirror Cabinet
Mirrors in the Cabinet of Mirrors
More mirrors
Windows on Mirrors
More decorations
A bronze sculpture of a classical hero, the fleet-footed Perseus.
Another angle to ancient violence: Perseus with the severed head of the Medusa, with her snake-like curls
Who is that?
Poseidon?
A display of various forms of the royal coats of arms
This is the Ornate Chapel (Reiche Kapelle dedicated in 1607, the private oratory of
Duke Maximilian I (reg. 1598-1651) and his consort, the place where the
"Heilitumschatz" or collection of precious holy relics are kept. The altar was made in
Augsburg. The ornate organ and reliquary shrine on the side walls and
painted glass windows of the dome were all original. The chapel was
destroyed in 1944 what we see is the chapel as reconstructed. Its scagliola plaques (also called Blasius Fistulator because it was first invented by Blasius Pfeifferf for which he was granted a monopoly) its most distinguishable feature, was later imitated in the decoration of other parts of the Residenz.
Very carefully made window panes
details of the pictures between the roundish window panes
The lavishly decorated dome of the chapel
walls: painted with azurist dust, the deep blue doomed ceiling was supposed to make it look like the night sky and its gilt reliefs, narrate events from the lives of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the saints.
The walls of the chapel were panelled with scagliola, or imitation marble. The pictures on
the reliquaries depict scenes from the life of the Blessed Virgin by
the famous German painter Albrecht Dürer.
The altar
Another tapestry showing the king with his family and counselors
Another Audience Room, the Outer Audience Room
Silver palace model
Part of what's called the Stone Rooms where one finds decorations on themes of 4 Elements and the victory of the Church, adjacent to the Imperial Hall, a suite reserved for the most important guests. Luitold the Prince Regent, the second last monarch, used to live here.
a statue in the Cabinet of Miniature
Another miniature chariot
A clock with miniature figures at the bottom
Another gold clock and barometer
A tapestry of the royal coat of arms
Another Oriental vase on a console
Velvet seats
Gold candle stands in the Conference Room
The Emperor's State Bedroom was reserved exclusively for ceremonial occasion and not for actual private use. All the furniture in the room form part of the original inventory. The ceiling stucco work by reconstructed by Johann Baptist Zimmermann to the original design depict the four parts of the day.
A beautiful French cabinet for the exclusive use the king. When I look at such luxury and the life who once enjoyed it, I couldn't help but recall of the words of Marcus Aurelius, a famous and well loved Roman Emperor, who in his Meditations reminded himself. "Take heed not to be transformed into a Caesar, not to be dipped in the purple dye, for it does happen. Keep yourself therefore, simple, good, pure, grave, unaffected, the friend of justice, religious, kind, affectionate, strong for your proper work. Wrestle to be he man philosophy wished to make you...Life is brief, there is but one harvest of earthly existence, a holy disposition and neighborly act." Yet how many of those who ruled over us could live up to what this wise Roman Emperor said and do what he did? Marcus Aurelius is wise. He knows the true limits of man. He once said, "Deem not life a thing of consequence. Look at the yawning void of the future and at that other limitless space the past...This being of mine, whatever it really is, consists of a little flesh, a little breach and the part which governs...The longest-lived, the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing." Now all that luxury is little more than a subject for the curious gaze of millions of strangers from all over the world. How short sighted are mankind, our rulers not excluded.
My last lingering look at the Residenz, pensive with torrents of uncontrollable reflections.I thought of words of a famous and wise Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, who recalling what his Stoic precedent Epictetus said: "thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse" and warned himself against turning himself into a Caesar, "not to be dipped in the purple dye,..Keep yourself therefore simple, good, pure, grave, unaffected, the friend of justice, religious, kind, affectionate, strong for your proper work...be the man philosophy wished to make you...Life is brief; but there is one harvest of earthly existence, a holy disposition and neighborly acts. " How many of our rulers could do that?
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