Herrenchiemsee is a complex of royal buildings on the Herreninsel

Herreninsel

The island Herreninsel, with an area of 238 hectares, is the biggest of the three main islands of the Chiemsee, a lake in the state of Bavaria, Germany. Together with the islands of Fraueninsel and "Krautinsel" it forms the municipality of Chiemsee....

, an island in the Chiemsee

Chiemsee

Chiemsee is a freshwater lake in Bavaria, Germany, between Rosenheim, Germany, and Salzburg, Austria. It is often called the Bavarian Sea. The rivers Tiroler Achen and Prien flow into the lake; the river Alz, out of it...

, Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

's largest lake, 60 km south east of Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

. Together with the neighbouring island of Frauenchiemsee

Frauenchiemsee

The island Frauenchiemsee is the second largest of the three islands in Chiemsee, Germany. It belongs to the municipality of Chiemsee in Upper Bavarian district of Rosenheim, which is the smallest municipality in all of Bavaria. The large and car free Fraueninsel houses 300 permanent residents as...

 and the uninhabited Krautinsel it forms the municipality of Chiemsee

Chiemsee (municipality)

Chiemsee is a municipality in the district of Rosenheim in Bavaria in Germany, named after the lake Chiemsee. It is Bavaria's smallest municipality by area and the second smallest by population....

. The Augustine Monastery Herrenchiemsee, later converted into the Old Palace (Altes Schloss), and Herrenchiemsee Palace, also known as the New Palace (Neues Schloss), are the most famous of these buildings and the largest of King Ludwig II of Bavaria

Ludwig II of Bavaria

Ludwig II was King of Bavaria from 1864 until shortly before his death. He is sometimes called the Swan King and der Märchenkönig, the Fairy tale King...

's palaces.

Herrenchiemsee Abbey (Old Palace)

Herrenchiemsee Benedictine

Order of Saint Benedict

The Order of Saint Benedict is a Roman Catholic religious order of independent monastic communities that observe the Rule of St. Benedict. Within the order, each individual community maintains its own autonomy, while the organization as a whole exists to represent their mutual interests...

 Abbey was established about 765 at the northern peak of the Herreninsel by Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria

Tassilo III of Bavaria

Tassilo III was duke of Bavaria from 748 to 788, the last of the house of the Agilolfings.Tassilo, then still an infant, began his rule as a Frankish ward under the tutelage of the Merovingian Mayor of the Palace Pepin the Short after Tassilo's father, Duke Odilo of Bavaria, had died in 747 and...

. In 969 Emperor Otto I

Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor

Otto I the Great , son of Henry I the Fowler and Matilda of Ringelheim, was Duke of Saxony, King of Germany, King of Italy, and "the first of the Germans to be called the emperor of Italy" according to Arnulf of Milan...

 granted to the Archbishops of Salzburg

Archbishopric of Salzburg

The Archbishopric of Salzburg was an ecclesiastical State of the Holy Roman Empire, its territory roughly congruent with the present-day Austrian state of Salzburg....

, who about 1130 re-established Herrenchiemsee as a monastery of Canons Regular

Canons Regular

Canons Regular are members of certain bodies of Canons living in community under the Augustinian Rule , and sharing their property in common...

 living under the Augustinian rule. With approval of Pope Innocent III

Pope Innocent III

Pope Innocent III was Pope from 8 January 1198 until his death. His birth name was Lotario dei Conti di Segni, sometimes anglicised to Lothar of Segni....

, Prince-Bishop Eberhard von Regensberg in 1215 made the monastery church the cathedral of a diocese in its own right, the Bishopric of Chiemsee

Bishopric of Chiemsee

The Bishopric of Chiemsee was a Roman Catholic diocese based on the islands of the Chiemsee in Bavaria, Germany.-History of the Bishopric :...

 including several parishes on the mainland and in Tyrol

County of Tyrol

The County of Tyrol, Princely County from 1504, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire, from 1814 a province of the Austrian Empire and from 1867 a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary...

.

In the course of the German Mediatisation

German Mediatisation

The German Mediatisation was the series of mediatisations and secularisations that occurred in Germany between 1795 and 1814, during the latter part of the era of the French Revolution and then the Napoleonic Era....

 in 1803 Herrenchiemsee Abbey was secularised and the Chiemsee bishopric finally dissolved in 1808. The island then was sold, various owners demolished the cathedral and turned the abbey into a brewery. Plans for the complete deforestation of the island were blocked by King Ludwig II, who acquired Herrenchiemsee in 1873. He had the leftover buildings converted for his private use, the complex that later became known as the "Old Palace", where he stayed surveying the construction of the New Herrenchiemsee Palace.

From 10 to 23 August 1948, the representatives of eleven German states

States of Germany

Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...

 of the Western Zones and West Berlin

West Berlin

West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...

 met at the Old Palace as the Verfassungskonvent (Constitutional Convention) to prepare the work for drafting the Basic Law

Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany

The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany is the constitution of Germany. It was formally approved on 8 May 1949, and, with the signature of the Allies of World War II on 12 May, came into effect on 23 May, as the constitution of those states of West Germany that were initially included...

 (Grundgesetz) with a view to the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Herrenchiemsee Palace (New Palace)

The unfinished New Palace was designed by Christian Jank

Christian Jank

Christian Jank , was a German scenic painter notable for his palace designs for King Ludwig II of Bavaria.Jank was born on 15 July 1833 in Munich, the Bavarian capital....

, Franz Seitz, and Georg von Dollmann

Georg von Dollmann

Georg von Dollmann was a German architect and Bavarian government building officer.Georg von Dollmann was born on 21 October 1830 in Ansbach as Georg Carl Heinrich Dollmann. The son of a government officer, he attended the Gymnasium in Ansbach...

 and built between 1878 and 1885. Between 1863 and 1886 a total of 16,579,674 Marks was spent constructing Herrenchiemsee. An 1890 '20 Mark' gold coin contained 0.2304 troy ounce

Troy ounce

The troy ounce is a unit of imperial measure. In the present day it is most commonly used to gauge the weight of precious metals. One troy ounce is nowadays defined as exactly 0.0311034768 kg = 31.1034768 g. There are approximately 32.1507466 troy oz in 1 kg...

 (7.171 g) of gold. Therefore, 16,579,674 Marks would equate to 190,998 oz of gold, which at recent gold prices (March 2007) is worth approximately £70,500,000GBP or (August 2007) $125,400,000 USD.

Ludwig only had the opportunity to stay within the Palace for a few days in September 1885. After his death in the following year, all construction work discontinued and the building was opened for the public. In 1923 Crown Prince Rupprecht gave the palace to the State of Bavaria.

Design

Unlike the medieval design of Neuschwanstein Castle begun in 1869, the New Palace is, in a sense, a Neo-Baroque monument to Ludwig's admiration of King Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

. In the great hall of mirrors of the palace the ceiling is painted with 25 tableaux showing Louis XIV at his best.

It was to have been an equivalent to the Palace of Versailles

Palace of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....

, but only the central portion was built before the king died in 1886, whereafter construction was discontinued leaving 50 of the 70 rooms of the palace incomplete. It was never meant to be a perfectly exact replica of Versailles and in several places surpasses it. With a length of 98 m (321.5 ft) and 23 arches the Hall of Mirrors is larger than the Versailles equivalent

Hall of Mirrors (Palace of Versailles)

The Hall of Mirrors is the central gallery of the Palace of Versailles and is renowned as being one of the most famous rooms in the world.As the principal and most remarkable feature of King Louis XIV of France's third building campaign of the Palace of Versailles , construction of the Hall of...

. The dining room features an elevator table and a huge chandelier of Meissen porcelain

Meissen porcelain

Meissen porcelain or Meissen china is the first European hard-paste porcelain that was developed from 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. After his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger, continued his work and brought porcelain to the market...

, the largest in the world. The building also benefits from nearly two centuries of technological progress, while the original Versailles palace did not have a single toilet and the only running water was outside in the fountains. King Ludwig's "copy" has more modern facilities including a central heating system and a large heated bathtub. Also, unlike Versailles, it was built on an island and is now only accessible by a small ferry - thereby Herrenchiemsee always remained slightly in the shadow of Neuschwanstein.

Gardens

The formal gardens are filled with fountains, a copy of the Versailles

Gardens of Versailles

The Gardens of Versailles occupy part of what was once the Domaine royal de Versailles, the royal demesne of the château of Versailles. Situated to the west of the palace, the gardens cover some 800 hectares of land, much of which is landscaped in the classic French Garden style perfected here by...

 Bassin de Latone

Leto

In Greek mythology, Leto is a daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe. The island of Kos is claimed as her birthplace. In the Olympian scheme, Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis, the Letoides, which Leto conceived after her hidden beauty accidentally caught the eyes of Zeus...

and statues in both the classical style typical of Versailles and in the fantastic style typical of romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 that was favored by King Ludwig. Cool maidens which look as if they have stepped out of a museum of classical antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

 are never too far from dragons, winged warriors, giant lizards and other extravagant beings which look as if they have come from one of Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's romantic opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

s.

External links

• Herrenchiemsee Page of Bavarian Palace Department (English): http://www.herren-chiemsee.de/englisch/n_palace/index.htm
• Herrenchiemsee Page of Bavarian Palace Department (German): http://www.herren-chiemsee.de/deutsch/n_schloss/index.htm