Rastatt Palace
Rastatt Castle Schloss Rastatt
The Oldest Baroque Palace on the Upper Rhine
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A proud series of baroque residences were built along the upper Rhine
River. Rastatt Castle was the first, founded by the Margrave
Ludwig Wilhelm of Baden-Baden (1655 -- 1707), nicknamed "Turk Louis" by
locals due to his spectacular military success in the recent Turkish
wars.
The oldest baroque residential palace on the Upper Rhine still receives
its guests much as it did almost 300 years ago, with a vast Court of
Honor framed by three monumental wings, a grand structured facade, and
a glittering gold figure of Jupiter casting thunderbolts with a gesture
of divine supremacy from high on the roof of the main building. A
truly baroque spirit pervades the entire complex, designed with a clear
order and strict symmetry. Rastatt Palace was the first noble
residence on German soil to be inspired by the great prototype at
Versailles as the 17th century turned to the 18th.
In 1698 the Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm of Baden-Baden had the foundation
stone for a hunting lodge laid here in the Rastatt, but before long it
grew into an imposing seat of residence. The expanses of the
Rhine Plain gave "Turk Louis", the hero of the Turkish campaigns, an
opportunity to express his legitimate claims to political power.
The new palace, park and town were to be the three integral components
in a coherent whole conceived as a total work of art and reflecting the
baroque aspirations of the nobility at that time. The complex was
also to be protected by walled fortifications, and the town was to have
a planned layout and model housing. Following his services on
behalf of the Viennese aristocracy, the Italian architect Domenico
Egidio Rossi, was commissioned to translate this audacious project into
reality. But the dream of absolutist glory was short lived.
For Baden's ruler died in 1707, just as his palace was completed with
its "symmetry and magnificence". It would take several more
years, until in 1715, his widow Sibylla Augusta truly succeeded in
inspiring prestige and glamour into the life of the residence.
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Much of the palace has survived the passage of time is a unique and
authentic specimen of a residential palace in the early 18th century.
The splendid stucco work with figures and raised relief that dominates
the ceilings of the Margrave's State Department has been preserved
virtually unchanged. Today we can see the rituals of an
absolutist court in our minds eye as we proceed to an unchanged formal
sequence of rooms: the ante-chamber, all of audience or throne room,
and ceremonial bedroom. The focus of the overall arrangement is
the Ancestral Hall, the venue for festive baroque receptions, which
still displays all its original splendor. Huge pilasters of red
and gray stucco lustro (trompe l'oeil marble) with Turkish prisoners
sculpted in plaster, impose an ordering patterns on this space. A
colorful ceiling fresco illustrates the very apotheosis of a sovereign
ruler as Hercules is welcomed on Mount Olympus. Imaginative
declaration lavishly finished with gold, embellishes this splendid
ballroom, while noble ancestors observe the proceedings with serene
composure from Psalm rows of portraits on the walls. Little
survives of the original luxurious furnishings many of which were made
of silver, apart from the series of tapestries devoted to "the art of
war". These Flemish works from the Van der Borcht factory
illustrate the great merits of the army commander in the Margrave's
ante-chamber and hall of audience
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