Schwetzingen - Schlösser-Magazin

three identical façades – has a main floor on
a hexagonal plan, an attica and above this a
lantern. Its interpretation is controversial.
Does this decaying building once dedicated
to a three-headed Mercury mean that secret
dogmas have been conquered by reason? 28
Or is this hidden Masonic iconography in a
programmatic reference to the fallen Temple
of Solomon? 29 What is clear is the Ancient
prototype: “La conocchia”, the Roman tower
tomb near Capua Vetere popularized by
Piranesi’s vedute. 30
Ruins were built for many gardens in the
advancing 18 th century. 31 In the park at
Schwetzingen, however, the material and
the way it has been processed create an
unusual impression. They are reminiscent of
a popular technique for the three-dimensional
visualization of Ancient buildings in the 18 th
and early 19 th centuries: phelloplastics, or
cork models. 32 Carl Theodor’s contemporaries
were not only interested in the original
condition of Ancient buildings, but also in
their present, picturesque manifestations
with all their traces of decay. Cork models
of Roman monuments were sold in series or
as individual items to the wealthy travellers
who came to Italy and to the courts of
Europe. Cork, which had already been used
for buildings in Nativity scenes in Southern
Italy, was ideal for capturing the atmosphere
of gutted travertine, porous tuff or weatherbeaten
marble. Model reconstructions of
buildings in their ideal form, on the other
hand, call for plaster or wood. In a cork model,
the decorative features were reproduced in
terracotta or coloured plaster, and lichen
or moss would be stuck on to resemble
vegetation. “Everything down to the least
joint, the smallest stone, the tiniest little
28 Fuchs/Reisinger 2001, pp. 180-182.
29 Snoek 2006, pp. 179-182, esp. p. 181.
30 Ficacci 2000, p. 757.
31 Günter Hartmann: Die Ruine im Landschaftsgarten. Worms
1981.
32 Werner Helmberger, Valentin Kockel: Rom über die Alpen
tragen. Fürsten sammeln antike Architektur. Die Aschaffenburger
Korkmodelle. Landshut 1993; Zänker 1989; Michael Hesse:
Klassizismus als Auflösung des klassischen Architekturkonzeptes,
in: Modernität und Tradition. Festschrift für Max Imdahl
zum 60. Geburtstag. München 1985, pp. 105-124.
IV. Palace Gardens: Role and Significance
lawn or mound of debris is measured and
represented, and the cork gives it quite the
dilapidated, venerable appearance of a ruinous
building, with the collapsing columns and
the masonry ground down by time.” 33 Among
the park ruins of the day, it is only those in
Schwetzingen, with their coarse brown walls
of tuff, variegated sandstone cornices and
marble stucco picture tiles, that recall these
phelloplastic sentimental aesthetics. One
cannot help concluding that Pigage translated
the qualities of the cork models back into the
monumental form.
Both these ruins in Schwetzingen therefore
create the impression that they have been
“gnawed by time” 34 and truly are monuments
of respectable old age. They are suggestions of
authentic Antiquity in the sense that Friedrich
Ludwig von Sckell meant when summarizing
his theory of the landscaped garden: the
observer should “[…] be able with a degree of
certainty to surmise quickly from the vestiges
of such buildings what their vocation had
once been and how they had essentially been
constructed. Even the fallen pieces should lie
there where, beyond all doubt, they surely
must have fallen, and gaps must show where
they formerly belonged. […] Such fragments
must, therefore, not be scattered at random,
nor should they on any account be borrowed
from other ruins (such as cornices, columns,
capitals and the like), as people would all too
soon discover that such heterogeneous parts
can never have belonged to the ruin built
here.” 35 As an apparently authentic setting
for an historical event of Classical Antiquity,
the open space by the Water Tower was
accordingly marked by the obelisk. It was
intended to commemorate an Ancient battle,
after tombs thought to be of Germanic and
Roman origin were found during earthworks
in 1777. 36 In 1768, similar finds had prompted
the erection of the memorial stone by
33 Fragment of a message from Gotha, in: Miscellaneen artistischen
Inhalts, vol. 1. Edited by Johann Friedrich Meusel. Erfurt
1779, p. 59 (quoted in Helmberger/Kockel 1993, p. 11).
34 Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell: Beiträge zur bildenden Gartenkunst.
München 1825, p. 36.
35 Sckell 1825, p. 37.
36 Leger 1828, p. 367.
IV.
73