3. - Schlösser-Magazin

function, was guaranteed by the construction
in 1771 of the Upper Waterworks in the
immediate vicinity of the palace, a hydropowered
pumping station with elevated
water tank. By 1774 the Lower Waterworks
had been added at the north-west edge of the
gardens.
In 1776 Nicolas de Pigage travelled to
England, where he met Friedrich Ludwig
von Sckell (1750-1823), a young man who
had grown up in Schwetzingen and who
had spent several years studying English
landscape gardening at Carl Theodor’s behest.
The following year, Pigage and Sckell started
work together on the Arborium Theodoricum
(known locally as the Wiesentälchen, or
Meadows), a narrow strip of land that was
fashioned so as to be reminiscent of natural
landscapes: the resulting masterpiece was the
first landscape garden in Southern Germany.
In 1778, Carl Theodor moved to Munich.
Although the prince took a number of artists
with him, Nicolas de Pigage and Friedrich
Ludwig von Sckell stayed at Schwetzingen in
order to complete their work on the gardens,
Pigage remaining there until his death in
1796, while Sckell eventually left in 1804.
That the gardens at Schwetzingen were
considered outstanding even during
their creation is borne out by the detailed
disquisition dedicated to them in the fifth
volume of Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld’s
Theorie der Gartenkunst (Theory of Garden
Design), published in Leipzig in 1779-1785.
The years between 1779 and 1795 saw the
construction of the garden mosque, which is
now the last extant example of its kind.
The 1783 as-is plan by Friedrich Ludwig von
Sckell gives a precise outline of the largely
completed gardens (Munich, Bavarian Dept.
for State Castles, Gardens and Lakes).
The Temple of Mercury, which stands on an
artificial hill across a lake from the mosque,
was built between 1784 and 1792.
Work on the gardens was eventually
completed around 1795. A comprehensive
inspection lasting several weeks was carried
2. Description
out during this year, and the report, the
protocollum commissionale, has been
preserved. It lists the entire inventory of
buildings, gardens and features, and stipulates
how the gardens are to be used and preserved.
2.
As-is plan of the palace gardens
by Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell,
1783.
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