II. - Schloss Schwetzingen

II.
28
II. Schwetzingen – A Prince Elector’s Eighteenth-Century Summer Residence
The mosque embodies many things: the
interest in foreign civilizations and faiths,
refl ections on Christianity, the issue of
tolerance and not least the sheer delight in the
magnifi cent exotic architecture. It was the last
of the follies to be completed, and has never
been furnished.
The Masonic Symbolism Embodied
by the Garden
The knowledgeable 18th-century visitor might
well have recognized yet another level of
allusions, that referring to the philosophy of
Freemasonry. 27 It is safe to assume that most
visitors in Carl Theodor’s time could, in fact,
“read” the garden in this manner – a large
percentage of aristocrats, artists and intellectuals
were themselves members. However,
18th-century masonic symbolism is complex
and very individual as the movement has
no fi xed canon. Numerous infl uences found
expression. Renaissance Humanism with its
theosophic cosmology, in its turn inspired by
antiquity, was one of them. Neo-Platonic ideas
and an esoteric mysticism played a part. So
did the usages of medieval lodges. Further
infl uences were the Illuminati and, from the
middle of the century, the “Strict Observance”
as propagated by the German noble Freiherr
von Hund, with its system of knightly degrees.
The meanings are hidden within the formal
layout of the garden, the statuary of the
French part and the imaginative “fabriques”
of the landscape garden. The visitor perceives
them according to his individual insight, that
is to say the degree of his initiation.
The investigation of this complex subject
matter, in connection with the Schwetzingen
grounds, is still in its infancy. The insights
listed here in a preview are the result of
interdisciplinary research presented here
also on behalf of – Dr. Andréa Kroon, The
Hague, and Dr. Jan Snoek, Heidelberg. A more
complete account has been published in 2006.
27 Western Esotericism and Freemasonry have developed
into academic fi elds in their own right. There are chairs of
Freemasonry at the universities of Sheffi eld, Brussels and
Leiden, and of Western Esotericism including Freemasony at
those of Paris and Amsterdam.
The results mentioned here have been made
available strictly for the purposes of this
document; their publication must be left to
the discretion of the scholars concerned.
The deeper meaning of the garden’s layout
is suggested to visitors already on the terrace
– every Freemason of that time would have
known as a matter of course, that with the
movement had already commenced a new
Golden Age. 28 The concept of the opposing
principles of Nature and Civilization, an
18th-century favourite – the savage against
the cultivated, the raw against the polished,
the spiritual against the unrefi ned or animal
– reappears continually throughout the
garden. One of the main themes of the garden
is the “taming of the wild”, that is the cultivation
of nature. The hounds bring down the
stag; the two Atalantes oppose Minerva and
Justice. The southern angloise with Minerva
and Apollo has its counterpart in the northern
one with Bacchus and Pan. The cubic block of
the sophisticated Temple of Minerva rises on
a base of rough rock. The artful French garden
adjoins the “natural” landscape garden.
“Geometria”, “Gnomonika” and “Rhetorica”
Unique works connected with 18th-century
Freemasonry are the sculptures representing
Geometry, Gnomony and Rhetoric. The statue
west of the Temple of Apollo, ascribed to Peter
van den Branden and identifi ed as “Geometria”
on the plinth, depicts a man holding a
rule, a plummet and a square. Freemasonry is
derived from the medieval masons’ guilds or
lodges. Work on the rough stone is symbolic
of the work of moral self-improvement. The
different stages of refi nement and completion
of the workpiece require different tools.
These tools thus acquire a symbolic value;
by themselves or in groups they represent
different degrees of initiation, and the
functions of Lodge offi cials. The compasses
and square are symbolic of Freemasonry
as a whole. A knowledge of geometry, the
28 See also: Frances A. Yates, Astraea. The Imperial Theme in
the Sixteenth Century, London/Boston 1975. And id.: The
Rosicrucian Enlightenment, London/Boston 1972.