II. - Schloss Schwetzingen

personnes qui ont été nommées pour
l’accompagner à celle Campagne, ou il restera
pendant l’été jusqu’a l’arriere saison.” 18 And on
23rd April 1772: “Leur A S E sont arrivées a
cette campagne hier matin avec les personnes
qui ont l’honneur de les accompagner du
nombre des quels je me trouve Msg. L’Electeur
y passera tout les tems de la belle saison
…” 19 . Schwetzingen even had its own rules
for the courtiers. Riaucour writes: “La cour
d’ici a fait imprimer et publier un Reglement
pour la Nobleße d’ici par rapport aux jour
de cour et des tables pendant la Campagne
d’Eté à Schwezingen duquel j’ai l’honneur de
joindre ici un Exemplairem mais la Nobleße
n’en est pas trop content.” 20 The removal date
was dependent on the weather, but as a rule,
the moves took place in late April and late
October. On the Elector’s name day, that of St.
Charles Borromeo on 4th November, the court
had to be back at Mannheim at the very latest
– this was the beginning of the social season,
or “Galatage”. According to Riaucour, the
Elector once returned to Mannheim in May
because of a “vent du Nord” (northern wind)
– apparently the heating at Mannheim was
more effi cient than at the summer residence. 21
In the 18th century the local newspaper
Mannheimer Zeitung also published regular
reports on the court’s moves: “Yesterday His
Serene Highness left his capital and residence
for his summer residence of Schwezingen”. 22
The logistics involved in this transfer of
the residence from May to October were
staggering. Food and wood were delivered
by cart – not even the everyday necessities
were available at Schwetzingen, they had
to be brought from Mannheim or from the
towns and villages that had been instructed to
ensure the court’s provisioning. The baggage
18 Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden. Loc 2626 Vol. XXIV
of 23rd April 1771.
19 Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden. Loc 2627 Vol. XXV of
23rd April 1772.
20 Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden. Loc 2626 Vol. XXIII
of 1st May 1770.
21 Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden. Loc 2627 Vol. XXV of
12th May 1772.
22 Bärbel Pelker, “Sommer in der Campagne – Impressionen
aus Schwetzingen”, in: B. Pelker/S. Leopold (ed.), Hofoper in
Schwetzingen. Musik - Bühnenkunst - Architektur, Heidelberg
2004, pp. 9-37.
II. Schwetzingen – A Prince Elector’s Eighteenth-Century Summer Residence
train from Mannheim took linen, furniture,
tableware and staff to Schwetzingen. The
English music critic Charles Burney wrote:
“The number of persons following the Elector
to Schwetzingen during the summer months
is anything up to fi fteen hundred, and all of
them stay at that small place at the Elector’s
expense”. 23 This number – fi fteen hundred
people descending on the tiny market town
– may well be accurate although there are no
written records to prove it. Mörz has found
evidence of 639 persons receiving salaries
from the electoral court in 1776. 24 Most
court servants were married. Their families,
however, were not entitled to accommodation
at the palaces; they had to fi nd lodgings
for themselves. It is safe to assume that
domestics’ families had no intention of being
separated from their breadwinners for six
months of every year, so presumably they
moved to Schwetzingen as well. The seventy
to eighty aristocratic courtiers each brought
their own entourage, people who again had
to be lodged somewhere in Schwetzingen. In
fact the seemingly large number of fi fteen
hundred is easy to explain. The modest palace
23 Charles Burney, Tagebuch einer musikalischen Reise durch
Frankreich und Italien, durch Flandern, die Niederlande und
am Rhein bis Wien, durch Böhmen, Sachsen, Brandenburg,
Hamburg und Holland 1770 – 1772, reprinted Wilhelmshaven
1980, p. 228.
24 Stefan Mörz, Haupt- und Residenzstadt, p. 82.
II.
Fig. 2: The summer residence
of Schwetzingen, aerial
photograph. East (top) to west
(bottom): The town, the palace,
the gardens (photo: LAD
Esslingen, 2005).
17