3. - Schlösser-Magazin

On 29 August 1749, the Prince Elector issued
a decree whereby all public offices were
required to report on any “antiquities and other
monuments” found in the Rhine regions and to
send these to “his Highness the Prince Elector
in person”. In doing that, the Prince Elector
was acting in accordance with a development
amongst the families of princely rulers
throughout Europe in collecting archaeological
finds made on their lands and presenting them
as monuments of their own heroic past. 25 It was
only about this time that rulers began to include
local finds in their own representative gardens
(such as Ledreborg and Jägerspreis in Denmark
and Stourhead in Great Britain), and Prince
Elector Carl Theodor was thus at the forefront
of contemporary garden-art development in this
respect in Germany. 26
During levelling work on the land in the region
of the southern bosquet, a burial ground was
discovered in 1765, including weapons and other
finds, and was subsequently excavated in the
presence of the Prince Elector himself. 27 In 1777,
the theologian and historian, Casimir Haeffelin
(1737-1827), who had studied under the Jesuits,
explained the excavations as the necropolis
belonging to a Roman settlement, whereas the
Prince Elector’s assumption was that it had to be
the site of a battle fought by the ancient Romans,
with the mortal remains of the victors and the
vanquished lying side-by-side. Carl Theodor had
the archaeological finds incorporated in situ into
the gardens and had them designed to act as
prominent starting points for the large southern
bosquet. In 1768 and 1771, Peter Anton von
Verschaffelt created two classical monuments
25 Cf. Claudia Braun: Kurfürst Carl Theodor als Denkmalpfleger.
In: Lebenslust und Frömmigkeit, vol. 1, pp. 347-352, here p. 347
26 Cf. Annette Dorgerloh, Michael Niedermeier: Helden, Hirten
und gefälschte Götter – Anciennitätskonzepte in herrschaftlichen
Gärten des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts; Idem: Wodan und
Svantevit oder von Lethra bis Rethra. Germanische und slawische
Vorzeit in herrschaftlich-patriotischen Gartenprogrammen
Dänemarks, Mecklenburgs, Brandenburgs und Polens. In: Vom
höfischen Garten zum öffentlichen Grün. Gartenkunstgeschichte
und Gartendenkmalpflege in Deutschland und Polen. Edited
by Gabriele Horn (forthcoming); Michael Niedermeier: Anthyrius
– Odin – Radegast. Die gefälschten mecklenburgischen
Bodendenkmäler und inszenierte Herrscherabstammungen im
“englischen” Garten. In: Vorwelten und Vorzeiten. Archäologie
als Spiegel historischen Bewusstseins in der Frühen Neuzeit.
Edited byDietrich Hakelberg, Ingo Wiwjorra. (Herzog-August-
Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel) 2009 (in press).
27 Peter Fuchs: Palatinatus illustratus – Die Historische Forschung
an der kurpfälzischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Mannheim 1963, p. 156
VI. Interpretation of the Palace Gardens as a whole: Dr. Michael Niedermeier
with Latin inscriptions. Opposite the “memorial
to the gardens” praising the Prince Elector’s
peaceful activity in creating the gardens as a
monument and tribute to Nature, the great
mother of all things (“Magna rerum mater
Natura”), there stands the “warriors’ monument”
recalling the archaeological finds: “Martis et
Mortis|Romanor. ac Teutonum (…).” (“The field
of battle and the death of the Romans and
Germans were discovered through the weapons,
urns, bones and instruments found in 1765.”)
The rear of the warriors’ monument bears the
inscription in which the Prince Elector portrays
himself as a prince of peace and protector of
monuments: “Pacis Artibus|Vitae Suae deliciis
(…)” (“In honour of the arts of peace, the joy
of his life, Carl Theodor re-consecrated this
land, which had been lowered by seven feet,
and had this monument erected in 1768”. 28
Present-day knowledge interprets the finds
as Neckar-Suebian cremation graves from the
first-century ad, and they are now part of the
“Hofantiquarium” collection in Mannheim. A
further burial ground was uncovered in April
1777 during excavation work near to what is
known today as the ruin of a Roman aqueduct.
Haeffelin published details of it that same year
in his work on “discoveries of a number of
antiquities in the Prince Elector’s pleasance in
Schwetzingen”. It was known early on that the
whole of the estate occupied by the gardens and
the land beyond it was rich in archaeological
artefacts. In the introduction to the 1820 guide
to the gardens, the subject is presented in
detail (occupying 20% of the total volume) as
a patriotic characteristic of the landscape. It
must be considered as certain that the authors
of that guide to the gardens had recourse to
older traditions, which claim that Schwetzingen
Gardens are located in “Hadrian’s valley”, which
formed the boundary of the [Roman] Empire”. 29
It seems more than likely that Carl Theodor
must have had the idea of a Roman or
Renaissance villa (“Villa Adriana” or “Villa
d’Este”) in mind for his summer seat, as he
would have seen them during his journeys to
28 Zeyher [c. 1820], p. 105f
29 Op. cit., pp. 1-39, here p. 34
VI.
239