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Enlightenment typical of the larger German territories with their vast
bureaucracies. Whereas ‘enlightened absolutism’, best identified
with the Prussia of �rederick the Great, pressed for reforms to centralize
power in the state apparatus, ‘federal Enlightenment’ was
indebted to the ideal of diversity, ‘decentralised government and
political pluralism’ (p. ix). It displayed strong sympathy for the political
structure of the Old Reich with its multitude of small political
units. �ederal Enlightenment, which, according to Umbach, was pioneered
by Prince �ranz, thus combined notions of improvement and
reform with a defence of the political and legal order of the Empire.
Like his intellectual concerns, �ranz’s political views found visual
expression in the garden at Wörlitz, most visibly in the Gothic
House which Umbach subjects to detailed scrutiny. Built in a style
reminiscent of the English neo-Gothic of the time, but interspersed
with attributes more common in Palladian buildings, the deliberately
eclectic architecture worked at several levels. Its crenellations conjured
up the world of medieval castles and knights. On the other
hand, the Gothic pointed arch, supposedly derived from the archetype
of the primitive bark hut, hinted at the Goths and, by implication,
at a primitive past of unspoiled virtues and especially of ancient
liberties. As in the case of the Temple of Liberty at Stowe, Gothic or
Saxon liberties were thus invoked. While in England they were
drawn upon to defend the ancient constitution against being overthrown
by despotic politicians like Robert Walpole, in the political
setting of the German Empire they must be understood as protecting
old imperial rights against modern states like Prussia. At the same
time, the regular architectural features, symbolizing ‘the more rational,
institutional thinking of the Renaissance epoch’ (p. 153), can be
read against the backdrop of the concurrent imperial reform discussion
which reveals a comparable divide between representatives of
an idealized medieval image of the Empire (for example, Justus
Möser) and those who stressed the legal and rational institutions of
the Old Reich, such as the Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber
Court) established during the Renaissance (for example, Stephan
Pütter). �rom such a perspective, the Gothic House symbolized the
reconciliation of the rational and the irrational in the interests of
imperial self-defence. More clear-cut than the exterior was the symbolic
language of the interior where references to imperial history
and the federal constitution multiplied. Numerous artefacts, like
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A War of Words?