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3. Justification for Inscription
the sixteen latticework arches 6 arranged
round the central Arion basin, Pigage, who
took over when Petri left in 1758, emphasizes
the significance of the circle as the point of
intersection of the avenue leading up from
Mannheim with that from Heidelberg. 7
Opinions differ with regard to this creation,
both when it comes to its original inventor
and regarding its significance for garden
history. 8
Order and Dynamics
The circular parterre did not spring to life
fully formed. The credit is not due to Petri
alone; there were also the designs by Bibiena,
the building by Rabaliatti and the creative
interpretation by Pigage in the 1760s, all of
whom contributed to the final appearance
of this extraordinary piece of Baroque space
orchestration. The artist-gardeners were
faced with the daunting and in fact unique
task of reconciling the centralising force of
the serenely static circular shape with the
pull towards the distance the French parterre
had developed in the course of the 17th
and early 18th-centuries. 9 The contradiction
6 „In the vicinity of the great Arion-basin, in the very centre
of the circular garden, and specifically on the two diagonals
pointing towards the temples of Minerva and Galathea, are 16
wooden colonnades of latticework“ (letter written to the Elector
by Sckell, dated 6.9.1798, GLA 213/113).
7 Wiltrud Heber: Treillagearchitekturen im Zentrum des Schwetzinger
Schlossgartens – Gutachten für die Oberfinanzdirektion
Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe 1992, p. 35.
8 Lohmeyer (Karl Lohmeyer: Südwestdeutsche Gärten des Barock
und der Romantik. Saarbrücken 1937, p. 126 ) and Martin (Kurt
Martin: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Amtsbezirks Mannheim:
Stadt Schwetzingen. Die Kunstdenkmäler Badens, vol.10, 2.
Abt. Karlsruhe 1933, p. 141) consider it a unique achievement,
mainly by Petri, that has neither a model nor a successor in
European gardening. Quite early on Jörg Garner had pointed
out some precursors to the Schwetzingen central-plan layout in
the history of German garden art, limiting himself entirely to
parterres in his comparisons, whereas Heber extends his range
of possible models or parallel creations to cover all urban or
garden spaces with a circular feature (Heber: Treillagearchitekturen
im Zentrum des Schwetzinger Schlossgartens. Karlsruhe
1992, p. 35; occasionally critical: Elisabeth Szymczyk-Eggert:
„.. sogar wäre es mir lieb, wenn Ihr Schwetzingen besuchet“,
in: Günther Harri: Gärten der Goethe-Zeit. Leipzig 1993,
pp.149-159) and emphasizes the fact that several people were
involved in the planning and building process. Heber’s largely
justified criticism limits itself to the physical shape of the
circle, however, all but disregarding function and content.
The number of examples cited is impressive; nevertheless the
comparison is not wholly convincing either methodically or
with regard to the points it makes.
9 Jörg Gamer: Bemerkungen zum Garten der kurfürstlich
pfälzischen Sommerresidenz Schwetzingen. In: Kurfürst Carl
Theodor zu Pfalz, der Erbauer von Schloss Benrath. Ed. Jörn
Bahns. Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Düsseldorf. Düsseldorf
1979, p. 20.
appears insurmountable and particularly
evident if we consider insights taken from the
performing arts. According to dramatics, ideal
geometric shapes like the circle and square
are admirably suited for positioning purposes,
for assemblies and ritual or military spectacle;
they are quite unsuitable for dramatic
performances. 10 Like no other art form in
history Baroque gardening adapts to the laws
of stagy movement, of the courtly festivity;
not for nothing did it develop a spatial “canon”
that works both choreographically and with
regard to perspective. 11
Petri solved his artistic problem by classically
structuring the circle with a crossroads,
and emphasized the fact with the aid of
bosquet-type planting in the segments. He
orchestrates an axially (i.e. orthogonally)
structured parterre, supplemented in a way
by an ancillary parterre on the traverse
axis. The circle itself remains hidden in the
parterre. Where Petri had merely bordered
the space with simple latticework arches,
Pigage created the arbour walks to serve
as precise architectural equivalents of the
quarter-circle pavilions, 12 and by lowering the
lawn areas (the “boulingrin”) he brought the
architecture of the space, the circular shape,
into visibility. In this respect it is Pigage who
is the true creator of the ideal geometry that
constitutes the circular parterre, and with
his orchestration of the circular shape the
Utopian aspect of this geometry comes into
play.
The Utopian element has been a major
architectural topos since the days of the
early Humanists, usually with direct
10 „The acting area must necessarily be a rectangle and not a
circle. The circle allows one type of true movement only, the
turn. ... This is the reason it is so difficult to have a play in a
circular space. The circus ring is for horses, not humans, it does
not permit anything dynamic. The rectangle by contrast allows
all the great dynamic routes, the straight lines, the parallels, the
diagonals, that release and organize a multitude of dramatic
possibilities” (Jacques Lecoq: Der poetische Körper. Eine Lehre
vom Theaterschaffen. Berlin 2000, p. 184sqq).
11 Cornelia Jöchner: Die Ordnung der Dinge: Barockgarten
und politischer Raum. In: ICOMOS, Hefte des Deutschen
Nationalkomitees. München 1997, pp. 177-181.
12 The two central and four terminal pavilions should have
been constructed next, according to Pigage’s suggestion of
1761 (Wiltrud Heber: Treillagearchitekturen im Schwetzinger
Schloßgarten, in: Mannheimer Gbll NF 2, Mannheim 1995, p.
215).