II. - Schloss Schwetzingen

IV.
168
IV. Biographies
a)
Rulers (in Chronological Order):
Johann Wilhelm (1658-1716), Elector Palatine
(1690-1716).
Johann Wilhelm (1658/1690-1716) was born
in Düsseldorf on 19th April 1658, the fi rst son
of Duke, later Prince Elector, Philipp Wilhelm
(1615/1685-1690) of the Pfalz-Neuburg line
and his wife Elisabeth Amalie von Hessen-
Darmstadt, who had converted to Catholicism.
As was traditional with the Neuburg line, he
was educated together with his siblings by the
patres of the Societas Jesu, in particular by P.
Theodor Rhay. 1 The education of the sixteenyear-old
prince was continued by a Grand
Tour. With a small entourage of tutors and a
few noblemen of his own age, he spent the
years from 1674 to 1677 in France at the court
of Louis XIV, in London and Oxford (where
he received an honorary doctorate) and fi nally
in Rome and Naples. 2 Shortly after his return
he was called to the imperial court at Vienna
where he married his fi rst wife, Archduchess
Maria Anna Josepha, a half-sister of Leopold
I, in 1678. As a belated “wedding present”
the new husband received the governorship
of the duchies of Jülich and Berg from his
father. In 1690, he succeeded his father as
Elector Palatine. Due to the Palatine War of
Succession, Johann Wilhelm’s capital was not
the ravaged city of Heidelberg, but Düsseldorf
in the duchy of Berg.
His fi rst wife died in 1689 due to a miscarriage;
in 1691 he married Anna Maria Luisa,
daughter of Cosimo III Medici, Archduke of
Tuscany. 3 Early in his second marriage his
art-loving Florentine wife suggested many additions
to the hitherto rather modest Palatine
art collection. The collection of antiques at
1 Richard August Keller, Johann Wilhelm, lecture held on 7th
November 1916 at Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, 1916, pp. 94f. Cp.
Hermine Kühn-Steinhausen, Johann Wilhelm. Kurfürst von
der Pfalz, Herzog von Jülich-Berg, Düsseldorf, 1958, p. 20.
2 Kühn-Steinhausen, pp. 23-36, n. 1.
3 Re. the wedding cp. Klaus Müller, Eine fürstliche Hochzeit im
Zeitalter Ludwig XIV. Johann Wilhelm von Pfalz-Neuburg und
Anna Maria Luisa von Medici, in: Wieland Koenig (ed.), Anna
Maria Luisa Medici, Kurfürstin von der Pfalz, exhibition at the
Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, 1988, pp. 33-48, here pp.
40 f.
Mannheim, later to become very famous, was
based on Johann Wilhelm’s collection of casts
of Classical statues. The picture gallery, which
included major works by Rubens, van Dyck
and Rembrandt, was to form the foundation
of the Alte Pinakothek museum at Munich in
1805. 4
The Treaty of Ryswick, which concluded the
Palatine War of Succession in 1697, granted
Wilhelm the return of those parts of the Palatinate
occupied by the French in return for the
promise (given without too much reluctance)
not to reverse the French measures to re-catholicize
the Palatinate, the so-called Rijswijker
Klausel. The Protestant subjects never forgave
their Elector. Johann Wilhelm still intended to
settle at Heidelberg, the capital of the Palatinate;
but the castle, destroyed in March 1689,
presented a sight as desolate as the city itself,
which had been razed in 1693.
In view of the cost, and the general lack
of space, there seemed to be little point in
rebuilding Heidelberg Castle. Instead plans
were drawn up for a prestigious new palace in
the plain near Schwetzingen, a seat of power
to rival Würzburg, Dresden and Berlin. The
plan failed due to the dismal fi nances of the
war-ravaged country.
Johann Wilhelm and his wife were united in
their passion for hunting. The Palatinate did
not offer an adequate residence, and so it was
decided in 1697, to rebuild the hunting lodge
at Schwetzingen with its neglected garden,
destroyed in March 1689, as the temporary
(and, for the time being, only) residence
combined with a hunting lodge. 5
In the autumn of 1698, the treasury received
orders to make the necessary funds available.
The treasury reminded the Elector that times
were hard and “necessary funds” hard to come
by. 6 Thus the rebuilding was paid for mainly
by the private fortune of Electress Anna
4 Georg Poensgen, Die Gestalt des Kurfürsten Johann Wilhelm.
Zur Gedächtnis-Ausstellung im Ottheinrichsbau des Heidelberger
Schlosses, Juni- Oktober 1958, p. 4.
5 Irene Markowitz, Schlösser und Gärten, in: Wieland Koenig
(ed.), Anna Maria Luisa Medici, Kurfürstin von der Pfalz,
exhibition at the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, 1988,
pp. 81-91, here pp. 89 f. Cp. Kurt Martin, Die Baudenkmäler
des Amtsbezirkes Mannheim, Karlsruhe, 1933, pp. 24.
6 Qtd. after Martin 1933, p. 26, n. 10.