3. - Schlösser-Magazin

of the palace and as a star-shaped bosquet-like
area in the grounds.
The dimensions of the Schwetzingen circle
alone raise it above small circular garden
rooms of this type. Moreover these rooms are
not directly adjacent to the palace due to their
function, and they are not parterres.
(V) The circular parterre as a small room:
Formally and functionally the similarities to
Schwetzingen are greatest here. However,
these parterres are not elements within
a graded Baroque layout; they have been
realised to accommodate a specific set of
circumstances such as the location within a
bastion or in the narrow confines of a villa’s
garden.
The eastern garden of the Würzburg
Residence (laid out from 1770 by J.P. Mayer)
featured a sunken circular parterre with a
fountain in front of the Imperial Pavilion;
it protruded into a second terrace and had
a layout of radially arranged, bell-shaped
segments and broderie beds. 21 The circular
„Baron Meyrische Lustgarten“ at Harlaching
near Munich (laid out in 1720 by M. Diesel)
has a similar array of central-plan rooms and
again no architectural “setting” of the circular
garden space. Formally similar solutions
occur in the 18th-century gardens of Tuscan
villas 22 ; the hillside estate of La Petraia near
Florence even features as one of its highlights
an intertwined double circle constituting a
separate, beautifully laid out room.
The Würzburg Residence layout could be
called a circular parterre in the strict sense
of the word. However, it lacks a connection
to a Baroque whole. It could be argued that
a Baroque circular parterre in the sense that
the entire circle constitutes a radially laid out
parterre is possible only as part of what is, in
essence, still a Renaissance concept – a small
solution, as it were (Würzburg, La Petraia).
The Schwetzingen parterre goes beyond any
of the examples cited above. In the cases of
21 Erich Bachmann et al.: Residenz und Hofgarten Würzburg.
Amtlicher Führer. München 2001, p. 36.
22 Luigi Zangheri: Im Dienste von Franz Stephan von Lothringen:
Gervais als Generaldirektor der Gärten in der Toskana (1737-
1756). In: Die Gartenkunst 2007/2. Worms 2007.
3. Justification for Inscription
the “Jagdstern” and the semicircular parterre
it is the centrally situated palace itself that
limits the unfolding of the layout. The space
cannot be developed as a garden (Jagdstern) or
remains typologically ambiguous (semicircle).
Most circular parterres are small-scale,
isolated solutions incapable of overcoming the
inward-looking character of the basic shape.
It is only at Schwetzingen that the basically
static circle gains a Baroque dynamic. This
is achieved by means of the hierarchically
structured intersection of avenues and a
3.
Ideal view of Lustheim Palace,
Maximilian de Geer, c.1730.
Plan of the palace and garden
of Solitude, Georg Peter
Schreyer, 1776.
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