Schwetzingen - Schlösser-Magazin

Mythology
The building owes its name, Temple of
Mercury, to the wall relief of weatherproof
marble stucco. It was probably carved by the
court sculptor Conrad Linck. Still extant are
three scenes over the archways, one of them,
with a figure of Mercury, having been lost.
Each depicts the youthful Mercury as the
main protagonist; his attributes – the helmet,
winged boots and staff – leave no doubt as to
his identity. On the higher storey, the façade
sports bulls’ skulls and draped cloth.
The episodes with Mercury relate to Ovid’s
Metamorphoses. 7 Two scenes are fashioned
after the iconographic typologies that had
developed in illustrations of Ovid up to that
time, and which were common and familiar
in the 18th century: 8 The relief on the east
side shows Mercury shackling Prometheus to
the Caucasus. According to legend, the latter
had stolen fire from the gods for his mortal
creatures, whereupon Zeus ordered that he
should be chained to the cliffs and that an
eagle should gnaw at his ever-regenerating
liver until such day as Heracles would free
him. The Schwetzingen relief draws on the
less frequent version, with Mercury laying the
chains rather than Vulcan.
On the north side we see Mercury releasing
Io in the shape of a cow. The legend tells how
Zeus hid his lover Io, a king’s daughter, from
his wife Hera by turning Io into a cow. As Io
was unhappy with her lot, Mercury was sent
to free her. He played the pipes to send the
guardian Argos to sleep before killing him. Io,
still in the form of a cow, was pursued by Hera
across the Ionian Sea to Egypt, where she was
later revered as the goddess Isis.
The third relief to the west has not been
7 Cf. Benjamin Hederich: Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon.
Leipzig 1770 (1st ed. Leipzig 1724).
8 Crispin van de Passe: Metamorphoseon Ovidiarum. (Cologne)
1602. Introductory Notes by Stephen Orgel. The Philosophy of
Images. New York 1979.
P. Ovidius Naso: Metamorphosen. Epos in 15 Büchern. Translated
and edited by Hermann Breitenbach with an Introduction
by L. P. Wilkinson. Stuttgart 2005.
A. Pigler: Barockthemen. Eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen
zur Ikonographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. vol. 2. 2nd
extended ed. Budapest 1974.
Jane Davidson Reich, Chris Rohmann: The Oxford Guide to
Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 – 1990. New York 1993.
III. Architectural Features
satisfactorily interpreted, for neither its
mythological nor its literary allusions are
properly understood. 9 We see Mercury
standing at the centre of the scene, apparently
directing the group on the right of the
tableau – a seated woman, a standing woman
and a ram – towards the god and goddess
who reign supreme, Zeus and Hera, on the
left. Usually, however, the ram was regarded
by the Ancients as a beast to be sacrificed to
Mercury, and rarely to Hera and Zeus. We can
only assume that the third scene also observes
an iconographic typology and that it would
have been recognized by Carl Theodor’s
contemporaries.
9 According to Heber, we can see Mercury leading Persephone/
Proserpina out of Hades back into the realm of mortals, with
Zeus and Hera recognizable. Martin argues that the third relief
scene should be interpreted as an allegory: Hermes right arm
is outstretched, indicating the two gods Zeus and Hera, as if he
wished to draw the attention of a seated and a standing women
to the divine couple. The girls, he says, are ready to sacrifice
a ram. Hermes is the go-between between gods and mortals.
Leger, on the other hand, reads the scene as follows: Mercury is
depicted in his role as messenger between gods and humans;
we seem him presenting a petition from the two women to the
deities.
III.
Fig. 2: Section through the cornice
of the dome structure on
the first floor of the belvedere
showing the position of the tie
beams and vertical member
(Photo: Vermögen und Bau
Baden-Württemberg).
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