Germany A-Z: Würzburg
Würzburg is not among the best-known German cities but is firmly among the country’s leading attractions. This status is supported by the UNESCO world heritage listing of its magnificent Baroque palace and garden.
But Würzburg’s story reaches back much further than the Baroque and has left the legacies many travellers desire – a late medieval hilltop fortress above a late medieval stone bridge across a river flanked by vines responsible for some of Germany’s finest wines – altogether a striking location. To all this is added architecture including churches from the early medieval through to Baroque periods.
Most of the great building projects and foundations of Würzburg are due to the influence and patronage of the ruling prince-bishops, who from the mid-15th century combined the title dukes of Franconia. In Würzburg ecclesiastical and secular power combined in the person of the prince-bishops from the mid-12th century, but the bishopric goes back to the mid-8th century. Several rulers also combined the title of prince-bishop of Bamberg. The prince-bishops’ power ended with Napoleon’s policy of secularising the German states, but they were at the peak of their influence in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The prince-bishops were lavish patrons of artists and builders. In Würzburg the greatest of these was the sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider, foremost among limewood carvers, whose work bridged Gothic and Renaissance styles. Riemenschneider’s work for the church extended through Franconia and Swabia but the best collection is in Würzburg, his home city. To appreciate Riemenschneider travellers should visit the Mainfränkisches Museum in the fortress of Marienberg, and in the city’s churches, chiefly the cathedral.
Under the Schönborn prince-bishops the magnificent Residenz was commissioned and built early in the 18th century. This Baroque palace with almost 400 rooms was created by the architect and engineer Balthasar Neumann, who died and mostly lived in Würzburg, spending more than 20 years supervising construction. The adjacent Hofgarten and palace square are also part of the site’s heritage listing. The palace is best known for its staircase with a frescoed and stuccoed ceiling by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, but several of its chambers are breathtaking examples of ornament.
The Residenz took over from the Marienberg fortress as the seat of the bishops. The bodies of most of the Würzburg bishops are buried in the cathedral, but for hundreds of years their entrails were interred in the fortress’s Marienkirche and their hearts went to the Ebrach abbey between Würzburg and Bamberg.
The medieval connections of Würzburg surround the cathedral, dedicated to St Kilian, the apostle of Franconia, who brought Christianity to the region from Ireland late in the 7th century and was martyred with two fellow missionaries. The first cathedral was consecrated in the presence of Charlemagne but the present building, much rebuilt and restored after wartime bombing, belongs to the 12th century. The sainted missionaries appear among the Baroque statues on the stone bridge Alte Mainbrücke leading across the Main from the Altstadt.
The site of the suffering of Kilian is the 13th century church Neumünster next to the cathedral. The little garden Lusam Gartlein with a surviving Romanesque cloister is celebrated as the resting place of the medieval minnesang poet Walther von der Vogelweide. Würzburg’s oldest secular building is the Romanesque tower of the nearby Rathaus, known as Grafeneckart, which with the vaulted Gothic Wenzelsaal is from the 13th century.
The late Gothic 15th century church Marienkapelle at Marktplatz was sited on part of the Jewish quarter and occupied by a synagogue, which was burned amid slaughter in 1349 when the Black Death was put down to Jews poisoning city wells. It was replaced by the market and church. Copies of Tilman Riemenschneider’s Adam and Eve stand over the south door and his Christ and apostles guard the external buttresses. The church is the resting place of Neumann, who is remembered by a plaque on a pillar.
The mighty fortress Marienberg, on the opposite bank of the river Main and commanding it and the city, followed a Frankish ducal castle and was the first stronghold of the prince-bishops. The prime view of Würzburg is from its Fürstengarten terrace before the east wall. Today, as well as hosing the regional museum, the fortress preserves the episcopal apartments, which can be inspected.
The 18th century Rococo pilgrimage church Käppele on the adjacent hill Nikolausberg is ornate inside as well as out. The interior plasterwork is beautiful, but anyone who has visited Munich’s Asamkirche will find familiar beauties in the ceiling frescoes by Mattäus Günther, trained in the Asam school. The cross stations for pilgrims, represent the suffering of Christ, are on the hillside stairs leading up from Nikolausstraße.
The prince-bishops’ summer palace Schloß Veitshöchheim is a short train ride or a 45-minute boat cruise from Würzburg. Visitors can tour the apartments and take in the Rococo Schloßgarten with its 200 sandstone sculptures.
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